City Gives Away Trees

For the fourth time in as many years the city of Pittsburgh will celebrate Earth Day by giving away saplings. 1,000 free dogwood saplings will be given out on a first-come, first-serve starting at 10:00 am Thursday at the City-County Building Portico.

“We were so excited by the overwhelming response to all of our free tree giveaways, that we’ve decided to make this an annual Earth Day event,” said Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. Last year the line to get the 10-inch trees wrapped around the City-County Building.

The tree giveaways are part of the city’s efforts to restore tree cover in the Pittsburgh region by planting 20,000 trees by 2012. The program’s secondary goal is to better educate residents on the importance of trees and proper planting and care of trees. Information about tree care will be available at the event.