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Tennessee Tree Day is March 15 and Tennessee Environmental Council is inviting the public to purchase some affordable, native trees to plant.

Each year Tennessee Tree Day engages thousands of volunteers in a fun, family-friendly event planting native tree seedlings all across Tennessee.

“The goal is to basically replant Tennessee native species as trees are lost to development and construction and fires and floods,” Morristown Tree Board Staff Advisor Kat Morilak said. “Our larger goal was to replant a million trees since the program started in 2007, and we hit that number last year. So now it’s basically just one day a year where people are encouraged to plant native trees.”

Tennessee Environmental Council works with TN Department of Forestry and other nurseries to supply bare-root native tree seedlings to citizens across the state through a network of volunteer partners and local businesses.

The partner in Morristown is Grow Morristown and volunteer/organizer Brandi Harville is going to be at the downtown farmer’s market on Friday and Saturday, March 14 and 15, to distribute the plants that people buy. The event website has more details on pickup times and procedures.

“You can go to the TEC website to get all kinds of trees,” Harville said. “Most of them are native to the area so you’re looking at dogwoods, redbuds, hickory and all kinds of trees. You pay very little for those trees.”

The trees must be purchased by March 2 and interested parties can go to www.tectn.org/tennesseetreeday to purchase their tree.

The TEC website explains why people participate in the event:

“While some people plant trees to replace those lost to development or weather events, others plant trees to help repair degraded streams and improve water quality. Whether you’re planting for caterpillar and bird habitat or purely for aesthetic reasons, native trees improve the health of our communities by reducing air pollution, trapping rainwater, cooling our cities and providing homes and food for Tennessee’s wide variety of song birds.

“Since 2007, Tennessee Tree Day events have mobilized over 100,000 residents to plant over one million native trees in Tennessee and the surrounding states.

“Plant a native tree and make your community a little better than you found it.”