Phot by Eloise Ogden/MDN Brian Johnson, city forester, is shown by a variegated Norway maple, one of the trees in this year’s Boulevard Tree Planting Program through the Minot Forestry Department.

Homeowners interested in purchasing a tree and having it planted on their boulevard can contact the Minot Forestry Department.

The department’s annual Boulevard Tree Planting Program is under way and those interested can call the Forestry Department at 857-4178 for more information or visit the Minot Park District’s website.

Brian Johnson, city forester, said again this year, they have a number of different varieties of trees including maple, elm, northern catapalpa, spring snow crab, honey locust, burr oak, a few varieties of elm and a couple varieties of maple.

“The maples seem to go really fast. In fact, I’m already sold out of one particular one,” he said at the interview on Monday.

If the Forestry Department no long has a variety requested by a homeowner available this year, Johnson said the homeowner can be placed on the list for next year.

“The nice thing with technology is you can just jump on our website – minotparks.com,” Johnson said. Website viewers then can click on “Plant a Tree” followed by “2018 Boulevard Trees.”

“It will have a variety of all the trees that we have available and it will give a brief description to give you an idea what we are offering,” he said.

He said they try to keep the list updated as best as they can but often trees go out so fast that those updating the website don’t get a chance to work on it until the next day. “Please bear with us. We try to update daily,” he added.

Each tree costs $100 and a one-year warranty is available for the extra cost of $25.

“They’re big trees, they’re very, very nice trees,” Johnson said.

As soon as the trees start coming in, he said they start planting them. “This year was a little late – spring didn’t want to come so a lot of the nurseries didn’t even get to start digging until just recently,” he said. One more truckload of trees was still expected to arrive for the program this spring.

He said they usually get in about 200 trees for the program. “Some don’t make it for whatever reason so if you have a warranty we replace them,” he said.

He said the number one culprit of tree damage is lawn mowers and weed eaters which isn’t covered under the warranty

The Forestry Department staff takes care of everything for planting a homeowners’ boulevard tree or trees including the North Dakota One Call, the procedure required before digging to ensure no underground lines are damaged, the planting and the first watering.

“Then it’s just up to the homeowner to keep them watered and looking good. If they have any problems, they just give us a call and we would be more than happy to come and take a look at them,” he said.