Meeting Minutes

Wednesday February 8th, 2023

6PM @ Black Hill Ranger Station

 

Attendees:

Gabrielle Oldham             Katie Kranich                                  Tom Frederick  

John Bennett                     Ron Anderson                                   Kathie Jarmon

Matt Spiroff                        Michael Morgan

                                                                                               

Ron brought the meeting to order at 6:05 PM.   

The February meeting minutes were reviewed and approved by the board via e-mail on 2/16/23.

Treasurer’s report

·         John reported no new changes to the board’s accounts.

·         The $100 check that the board approved last meeting and was written for the 2023 St. Mary Anne's Garden Market registration fee was cashed by St. Mary Anne’s.  

Maryland Big Tree Program Update:

·         John gave the county report, and his report is provided below:

MBTP Report – February 2023

  For Cecil – We received the signed permission for the persimmon.  The silver maple and Korean evodia are dead.  I stopped at the owner’s house about the sugar maple.  No one was home.  I left another copy of the permission form.  The tree looks to be in good shape.  I visited Furnace Bay Country Club as I had been told of two large unknown Cedrus on site.  I could not positively ID them.  One will definitely qualify; the other is a multi-leader tree dividing near the ground.  They are most likely atlas cedar.  I’ll work on getting permission.  I visited Fair Hill NRMA to check to see if the Black Bridge road is open to vehicular traffic—it is.

I could not find the county champion yellow poplar which is supposed to be near the one-lane bridge.  I did see a possible mockernut hickory that might qualify.  I finished the Cecil County Big Tree Driving Tour and submitted it to the Board.

  Statewide – All permission forms to big tree owners in counties where the local Board does not participate in the MBTP have been mailed for 2023.  We have 46 forms returned.  Ten trees have been re-measured and 9 trees (including Cecil) are dead.  We are scheduled to re-measure trees in Dorchester County on 3/5/23.

Twenty-six new trees were measured in February.  Eight were done by Marc Lipnick and various partners in Patapsco Valley State Park.  He has been hiking there with partners every week-end and finding qualifying trees; some on the Baltimore County side and some on the Howard County side.  They are all native, naturally occurring trees, and all between 115’ and 146’ tall.  Linda Barker and Marc partnered with the ranger at Hampton National Historical Site/Mansion in Towson to re-measure and measure nine trees.  One is a London Planetree—a new State Champion.  The other trees in February came from Carroll, Frederick, Montgomery and Queen Anne’s.  The tree in Montgomery is a cryptomeria—a new State Champion.  One of the trees in Carroll is also a new State Champion—a Norway Maple.

 

Figure 1. Trees referenced in MD Big Tree Program Report.

 

Natural Resources Career Camp (NRCC) Update:

·         Gabrielle reported that NRCC registration is well underway and at least 10 students have been accepted to camp so far.

Website Update:

Ron gave the update:

·         The February meeting minutes were posted to the board’s website in January following the board’s approval via e-mail.

·         The March meeting agenda was uploaded to the website in January.

·         Ron demonstrated a new map of a Cecil County Big Tree. The map is a test of an interactive mapping system available at: www.felt.com. Ron will continue to explore the technology to see if it is fitting for the board’s use in creating an online mapping system of big trees in Cecil County.

Old Business:

 

New Business:

·         Tome School requested a small number of seedlings for their color run in April. The board agreed to pull approximately 20-30 seedlings from the bag of seedlings intended for the St. Mary Anne’s Garden Market giveaways to give to Tome.

 

·         The St. Mary Anne's Episcopal Church Garden Mart will be held on Friday, May 5th from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. and on Saturday May 6th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  The Board agreed to rent a 10' x 10' space for $100.  Set up for the booth will be Thursday May 4th--time to be determined.  Gabrielle explained that it is very helpful to always have two people at the booth.  The Board will be passing out free white oak seedlings to interested visitors.

 

·         The board discussed inviting staff from Elk Neck State Forest, and Central Region’s 5 Million Tree staff to discuss their ongoing work at a future board meeting.

 

·         The Maryland Association of Forestry Boards Annual Spring Meeting will be held March 9th at DNR Headquarters in Annapolis, MD.

 

The meeting was adjourned approximately 9:15 PM.

The next meeting will be held on April 5th, at 6:00 PM.