Arroyo Park to get new trees, plants for Arbor Day with the help of Newport-Irvine Rotary Club

Arbor Day is customarily celebrated every last Friday of April, but the Newport-Irvine Rotary Club will mark the holiday on Saturday by planting over half a dozen trees in Arroyo Park.

Environmental chair Patricia Brainerd said this is the second such planting project the club has done in the last two years since Rotary International added environmentalism as a major focus of the organization. Last year, the group planted about 10 native tree species near Arroyo Park’s soccer field.

This year, the club will work along the park’s hiking trail.

“We really wanted to put [environmentalism] out to our members and look to see what we could do to improve the environment. One of the things we’ve done is clean Newport’s Back Bay for years, but we wanted to go above and beyond that. We don’t want to sit on our laurels,” said Newport-Irvine Rotary Club president Nicolet Araujo.

“So, we thought: what else can we do?” Araujo said. “We talked about being able to do some additional planting because one of the things that has been identified has been the impact of trees on our environment — not only their ability to clean the air but also on our water table. Having certain types of trees and plants in our environment can impact that.”

Brainerd said the organization is partnering with Shadetree Nursery in Irvine for this year’s project, as it did last year.

The nursery donates trees to organizations if those groups can put together a plan to maintain the trees after they are planted. So the club reached out to the city of Newport Beach and asked where the club could plant trees that would be part of an already existing irrigation system. She said city officials pointed to Arroyo Park.

The Newport-Irvine Rotary Club committed to this particular project because the city is creating a beautification plan for the park, which is heavily used by local high schools, Araujo explained. “They use the trails for cross-country runs, things like that. That’s how this came about.”

Local club members, joined by Rotarians from nearby clubs, will plant about 15 trees native to California and nearly 200 other low-lying plants like shrubs along the hiking trail. “We’re really working with the city to make sure those things that we plant are native because that also gives it a better chance of survival,” said Araujo.

Brainerd said there would also be some volunteers from UC Irvine’s Rotaract Club and Corona del Mar’s Interact Club lending a hand.

Members of the public are encouraged to join in with gloves and a shovel to help plant from 9 a.m. to about 12 p.m. Saturday. Araujo said people will, however, need to sign a waiver they can fill out and submit immediately on site.

Arroyo Park is located at 1411 Bayswater Drive, Newport Beach.

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