Tree Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

camera if it's not working right there we go you know something's happening okay cool all right it is 6 34 on july 8th and i am calling the tree advisory board uh Meeting. So we do have our quorum here. We have everybody except I didn't hear from Patty. I hope everything's okay with her. But yes, Claudia, let me know. She will not be here. Did everybody get a chance to look over the agenda and last month's minutes that were sent out? Do I have a motion to approve the July agenda?

I move to approve the agenda.

I'm excited. All in favor? Wonderful. Do I have a motion to approve the June minutes?

I will motion to approve the June minutes.

Can I get a second?

A second.

Perfect. All in favor? Yay. All right. Wonderful. We do not have anybody from the public here today, so no public comments. So we'll hop right into general business. All right. So a lot of what I want to discuss on Arbor day earth day was kind of contingent on some info that we wanted to get back from the town. Cause the two big things were the idea of potentially a time change from three to four hours, but then the bigger one is location. So here are Tom's words from this morning, or I guess that was yesterday morning. Um, I have not gotten an answer from the town event staff regarding whether they will approve this event for next year. I imagine my questioning led to a bigger discussion. It's a good thing that we're pushing the issue now, though, so that we aren't surprised later. I understand Sav has also begun this discussion. And then he kind of gave, like, an overview of what we talked about last month, the pros and cons of Coal Creek. So... it sounds like we don't need to vote quite yet because we have no idea what we are being asked to do um this may be a non-issue for now does everybody have anything they want to share on those at that point

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the entire conversation was contingent on how necessary this move actually was. Like, how much is it a forced move versus a, like... Exactly.

Exactly. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see also, like, what Sav is, what conclusions they're coming to, and how far they're pushing this. I'm sure it's the same channels where they're running up through the town, like we are doing with Tom.

Sounds good.

Okay. Amy, have you guys done like an after action review or like set up a meeting with Sav to talk about the afters? Okay. I will reach out to Karen and Erica and Tom. I'll see you and Claudia in that email too.

Debrief. Not get too far away from it before I start forgetting.

But it may, of all years, to be at least, we definitely don't want to get too far away, but of all years, to be a little further away with this issue of potentially moving locations. So maybe if we set it up sometime towards the end of the month, we'll have more information.

Okay.

Yeah.

We've got Erica and Tom there. That would help.

Jason, you said you were going to initiate that?

Yes, I will reach out, send out kind of a group message to everybody tomorrow and just say, hey, is this something that we could potentially make happen here in the next two, three weeks or so before the end of the month? So then we could potentially have more information and bring back to the team for our August meeting. Okay. That's all I had for Arbor Day, Art Day. Was there anything down that subject that anybody else wanted to bring up? Okay. This next one was also a bit kind of contingent on kind of, I was hoping like Tom would lead this whole discussion. It's the 2027 budget work plan. We talked about last month kind of putting together a, It's like together, a work plan and a budget just to justify our budget. But because things were different this year, as Tom said last week, he kind of just had to push a budget where he took $5,000 and took away 5%. So I think it was like $4,750 was the amount he put through. Do you know if budgets have been approved yet for 2020? No.

No, we haven't even looked at anything at all like that.

I think that the departments are finishing it.

Okay.

And then we'll get it later.

That makes perfect sense.

In October, I think, right?

Okay. And their numbers are a lot bigger than our 4,000.

Right. Yeah. You know, in the department.

Oh, okay.

That makes sense. I don't remember how they separate it up.

Okay, so I'm going to push that to talk to you more about that next month to try to get a work plan and justify our budget. But I think that's going to be a really good template for us to go off of in years moving forward. But the work plan we put together is obviously not going to help us with our budget for next year since that number's already been submitted. Did Tom send over...

I know he said that he had an example of a work plan that he's used or done. Did he send that over?

I did not see that, but you're exactly right. Let me... I'll say he's back in town, I think next week. So I'll send him an email on Monday when he's back in town.

We're scheduled to see a budget preview in August, mid-August.

And then the next subject was also sort of a bit contingent on information that of the 2027 budget. Cause it's, do we want to support the fruit tree rescue? And I think what we kind of concluded last week, last month is, you know, if our budget gets approved, yes. But if our budget gets cut a bunch, are we going to have money? Erica and Karen both, you know, kind of wanted an answer sooner rather than later, but they also understand where we stand right now. So yeah, unless someone feels strongly about saying yes or no now, I kind of think we need to see where we're at.

What do we think it's going to, I mean, There's a volume of fruit that's going to actually be...

This would be for next year. This year, we've already said we would give it $7.50 out of everything we have. We definitely have the budget for it this year.

For next year.

But ironically, we could potentially take... They're not going to need all the money this year. I have eight fruit trees, and I have, on all my fruit trees, I have like seven. Yeah.

I'm wondering, is there a way... for us to hold forward any budget that we've given them or anything that we've allocated this year. Is there a way to hold forward that they can hold it forward, not us, but they can hold it forward for next year so that it doesn't impact our budget for next year. We could make up the balance given that we are going to have a reduced budget, but it doesn't

So are you saying if they don't use their full... They don't use it all. Can they buy into 2027?

Yeah, exactly. With that, and then they can hold it. That's a great question.

It's almost like what we do with the Arbor day. Like we spend the rest of our money for the Arbor day for the following year. Yeah.

You know, that's why we're asked by our clients all the time to spend a bunch of money on ads. Yeah. Just set in December. It will hold this money next year. Cause if they can themselves, I mean, that kind of solves a large part of the problem. If we know that this year is probably not going to be a good one.

Who do you ask on that? It's,

think that's town first make sure that town would be okay with that and then melanie over at the fruit tree rescue second because it all depends on how they handle their finances yeah that's a great question taylor There's also a side of the fruit tree rescue. I've been going back and forth a little bit with Melanie that I don't know if this relates to the board so much, but did you guys see Karen sent out to everybody like last fall? They're doing this. chokeberry harvest. And it's basically like native chokeberries and native, you know, suffering plant. And Native Americans have used it and eaten it forever. It's something that it's hard to eat because the birds typically beat us to it. But they're basically harvesting fruit from chokeberries around Boulder County and sending them to tribes up in Wyoming that were struggling to get the fruit that they needed. So it's an amazing, amazing program. But I chimed in because my instant thought is like chokeberries are arguably one of the hardiest fruit producing trees that we have in all of colorado they're so easy to grow they grow everywhere they'll grow anywhere in wyoming like they would have no problem growing in cheyenne and you know 100 mile an hour winds so i talked to her about like can we get people to start growing these plants and instead of sending them berries send them plants um and i i actually talked to growers that would be willing to donate some of their time and space to crack those seeds and grow them into like a one gallon and ship them up um so there's a potential in the future because i love where they're going and the idea of that program but to me it's like You know, why hand a man a fish when you can teach him to fish?

That same thing.

And I would venture to say with the connections that I know a lot of Native Americans have to the land and the plants and everything, that that might be more preferable for them. But then again, that's a big assumption. So that could potentially turn into something. It wouldn't be this year. It may be into, like, next spring. But we'll see where that one goes.

That's really cool. I like it.

Okay. Anybody else have anything they want to add on the fruit tree rescue? Okay. The next agenda item is the biennial report. Leanne has been amazing and has put together our slides. And I know she asked everybody for pictures and we briefly discussed it, but does anybody have any secret pictures laying around for her?

I think the only pictures I'm still missing are the fifth grade poster contest. Usually I go and take a picture of like the sandwich board and I forgot to do that this year. So I think that's it. I think I'll just reuse some photos from school outreach. Um, And for tree walks, I'll just reuse those photos. But then I can put in new photos for Arbor Day. And then the posters.

I sent you the pictures of the posters the other day. You probably did. If you didn't get them, let me know and I'll resend them because I have front and back of all of them.

Perfect. And I will drop those in. So the only thing, formatting-wise, it's all the same. My question was, do we drop in... fruit tree rescue so um or do we just last time we mentioned it at the end we said other ways we're getting involved we said fruit tree we said um the park um and then there was one other that we had just kind of said hey we're also doing dabbling here. Do we want to keep fruit tree rescue as a, hey, we're dabbling, or do we want to throw it into our yearly commitments, programs, that sort of thing?

I mean, it's $750 over $5,000. I mean, it's like 15% of our budget that we allocated to this this year, which I think kind of warrants a little change to me.

Yeah.

Throw out that we were at, if I'm the one talking and looking at the mayor, again, we were at one of your rental properties last fall since, well, I guess we may have said that back in, the last one was back in the spring, right? Back in March.

The last one would have been. Yeah, it was last.

We hadn't been out there yet.

This is our first one for the year.

Yeah, then we'll plug the fact that we were at one of his rental's house. I think that would be a fun thing to say out loud in front of them.

Do you have some stats on... what was collected. I know it was discussed at some point in time, but that would just save me some time.

Let me shoot that to you tomorrow. So people don't have to sit here. And it's definitely somewhere in my emails where it was like exactly the pounds that were harvested. What went perfect, where like how many pounds went to the food pantries, how many pounds went to like, you know, and then I think it even, it may have had how many yards we were in or how many trees or something like that. So yes, I have some good stats for you.

Perfect. Then I should be able to get a draft. Do we know when our draft is due to the clerk? It's usually like...

When is the actual next draft?

Okay.

28th, is that?

Yeah, that's right. I still have not gotten an official notice from the town on that.

Yeah, usually they send out a very detailed email.

July 28th. And tree boards up last.

Her first last act.

And there's an urban renewal meeting that night, too. Typically a long meeting. This one... They're estimating 30 minutes. 30, 35 minutes.

My record is 3 a.m., so beat that.

Challenge not accepted. You can take that.

City council meeting at 3 a.m.

Denial.

It was a real rough night.

Anyway. Yeah.

Not talk about it. So typically I feel like the clerk usually wants, I mean, I know they publish agendas by Friday before. So I think they typically want it at least a week before. If not, I feel like we would be coming up. We're coming up to it.

Yeah.

So with that being said, I know we don't have answers, but, um, I can get the slides and the talking points drafted, ready to share tomorrow. Um, And then if everybody can just take a quick peek and provide any feedback, then at least it should be real close whenever we need to send it.

That's fantastic. Thank you for doing that.

Tomorrow send Michelle a quick email just saying, hey, when is this due? Just so we're ready for it. Perfect.

You had mentioned the possibility that this is now just a once a year occurrence. I think it is.

less of a biannual.

I thought it looked like it was going to be just an annual based on the advance agendas and

I don't have any recollection it's possible, but. Yeah. Did we have a conversation about it?

I don't think so, but it looks now, it just looks like it's almost right in the center of the year.

Yeah. And I was thinking, it was like, this is an odd time. Yeah.

It's an odd time.

Previously we were like March and September. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it is. Yeah. But except you have to wait a whole year to be first up.

Right. I'm worried. Is it just the same order every time?

And we are just. Save the best for last.

Save the best for last.

Save the best for last. Are we alphabetically last? Is that our problem?

I would say we could be invited to be bored of trees. Ooh. That will solve a lot of problems.

Was it you, Jason, that was running in that time several years ago? As we were finishing the URA, it didn't take as long as it was scheduled. And you literally ran from the back of the room to the podium. You were like, I'm here. Because you were first.

It was... So nerve wracking. I thought I was coming like an hour early and like the officer standing right there. It's like, Oh, you got lucky. You're at the perfect time. It was almost better that way. I was a lot of people. I'm not like, I'm trying to get better at speaking in front of that many people, but I was so anxious that if I just sit there and wait, it probably would have been worse. I always get there at the start of the meeting. Cause I,

you never know you just never know what i got there at the start of the meeting and you guys all left for some private meeting like what is going on this is my first time i don't think it doesn't what's going on

Have we described the biannual report to you? Is this new?

This is new. I'm gathering that it is a meeting we all go to where all of the boards present.

Not everybody has to go, but yes. Otherwise, we basically just present on what we've done, the accomplishments we've had. So that's why she's asking for some of the stats. And we each get each board gets five to 10 minutes and you're standing at the mayor and all these guys, the council members on either side and you have to quick run through. And then sometimes they've got some fun questions for us. Like the first time I did it, Mayor Brooks, who was our mayor at the time, was asking some fun questions. It was really fun going back and forth with him. So only one of us speaks. So you, if you're not speaking, you're more than welcome to attend. It's open to the whole town, obviously. Um, but as you kind of hear, it often goes pretty late.

Like it starts at six, but then there's a six 30 and then, um, the or a meeting, but it doesn't look like there's an executive session for that meeting so far scheduled. So then it looks like there's one general business item. Okay. And then turn for a few minutes to rotate. Okay. And then, uh, get into it.

So is that something we should try to make if we can? It's really fascinating to watch. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And you get to see.

You can also watch a recording later.

That's true.

That's true.

And it's in. You like go down there to get to where it is. Oh, wait, no.

It's in the new.

It's in the new. Wow. Yes. So it used to be twice a year. It might be once a year, as you've seen. And at any point, I know you're new and you probably don't want to speak now, but maybe next year if you ever want to be the one up there presenting, absolutely more than welcome. Because the next question I'm going to ask is, is there anyone in particular that wants to talk?

We are camping that week, so I will not be there. Otherwise, I probably would have done it. Claudia did a great job that last time. So maybe this time next year I'll do it.

I am potentially at a board and planning commission meeting or I'm kind of triple booked that day.

Well, Patti's not here, so you could nominate her. Patti and Claudia.

I'm going to ask them. I will do it if they can't, but I have a 6 a.m. flight the next morning to Salt Lake. And if it's already going to be late, I can make it work.

I should know.

I'll reach out to Claudia and Patti and see if either of them are.

Claudia. And Patty, didn't she do it one time too?

Yeah, because she couldn't figure out how to click the slides.

I'm at a potential as well. I'll just have to figure out my schedule.

Well, for that night, the only thing on general business are the presentations.

Oh, excellent.

We may go quicker. Well, I'm done and I probably jinxed it. Yeah, of course.

Just jinx the whole thing.

But that's what it looks like now.

I'll try to get an answer to that question here before the end of the week.

Okay. And that one's also at 6.30? Just the biannual meeting? Yes. I had my phone for the last time.

There will be a meeting in front of and before at 6.30, and then it'll go into council meeting at about probably 7-ish.

Okay, so 7 is the time it would actually start. Yeah.

That's a rough estimate. And there's eight total boards and we're last? No, no, it's not that many. Let's see here.

It's every board, right?

There's always more boards than I expected.

Yeah, it's one, two, three, four, six. So it's planning, airport, SAB, HPAB, OSTAB, and tree board. It's a tree board. All trees.

You just change it every year.

We just can't, we can't decide how to refer ourselves yet.

Okay. Does anyone else have anything they want to add for the biennial report? um tree talk newsletter um i think tom is steps ahead on that one i know taylor submitted something i put something in and i know he got that over to the town i think claudia had submitted something too so i think that is rolling just fine which would put it since we submitted it on the first email it kind of got me nervous i'm like oh my gosh are we about to not have a newsletter output We got enough to get Claudia. I wasn't a hundred percent sure if she submitted something, but whether she did or not, I think between what we put together, I think Tom put some words in there too, that we were going to have enough. So I'm sure we'll all see that grabbed here over the next like week or so.

What are you guys right on?

I just pulled a bunch of like fun stats of trees and the benefits they give you and, you know, tried to not sort of alluded to it pretty strongly without directly saying basically water your trees, don't water your gardens. Here's the value they give and why you don't want to give up on these things.

If you can only water one, do that one. And what did you write about? Drought restriction.

Oh, yeah. Really, it was just like, what are the drought restrictions? What are the stages? What do they mean? Where do you find information about the drought restrictions? Why are your trees don't water your grass?

You could also let your grass grow longer.

100%.

That helps.

Don't cut it every week.

Don't mulch it.

I don't know. The thing I continue to see is the drought. I feel like the drought restrictions, I don't know how well that's been communicated generally, but right now there's an even odd number of water days. I see people watering.

on odd numbers well how strict is it though like is it it's voluntary it's like mine i can set it like my thing i can set it for every third day so it is only watering twice a week but i don't have like a monday thursday option or you've got what like what a manual one like the orbit yeah yeah i think on if it's the gray one i'm thinking you can't set the dates the days

It's a pain to schedule, but you can do it.

Yeah.

Buy a new house. You can just do it all on your phone. There you go. It always baffles me that every town has different water restrictions. We're all pulling from relatively the same sources. So how are we different than anybody else north of Colorado? But that's what it is. Not a question worth answering today.

How much time do you have?

That's a big can of worms right there.

We've skipped a lot of agenda items here. We want to hang.

It's actually a few municipalities who have quite a bit of water and others that don't. Yeah.

Okay. Anybody else have anything they want to add on the newsletter? Our next deadline is October 1st. So we don't really need to talk about our fall one quite yet. We'll dive more into that in August and September. Okay. The only other business that I have are the tree walks. And we already have those set for September and October 1. We're doing September in Old Town and October at the Cemetery. And Mike Turner and HPAP are definitely willing to join us and kind of do like a co-hosted old town walk where they can lean more on some history on things and we can lean on trees. So the loose idea that Tom and I talked about is like the week before a group of us could meet and we'll have to make, we'll have to get a head count before it just so that we report it to town clerk. If there are enough board members and it becomes a meeting, but we'll walk around, we'll get a rough idea on like some things Tom would want to talk about and how that could overlap with things that Mike wants to talk about.

And that's September what? And October one?

It's October 30th. yeah i thought that was halloween yeah exactly it's the cemetery yeah october 30th of the cemetery i think it's the 25th okay how was the uh the dog park i think that was the thing after the last 10 minutes we just showed up that wasn't on the board and she left like 30 minutes in because she had like a family emergency very nice and asking fun questions but then she had to run off somehow

We talked to Tom while we were there about like getting like the town can advertise that for us. Right. I mean, instead of me just getting on Facebook and shooting it out, is that. So he said he would try to get more.

I think that's the struggle is getting the word out.

It ain't out early because I think we often hit it like the week before.

Regarding your comment about number of people meeting up for that old town, you could just send the clerk's office a note and just say, hey, there could be. Okay. And just instead of worrying about a head count, who's there and who's not there, just in that way.

There's more to do than you got to notice.

Yeah. So just notice it and be done.

No, I'm really excited for that one. It might seem like he was pretty excited too. And to tell him that I could try to read over email. And I think it's fun when the boards do things together and, you know, history and trees and old town can go so well together.

Well, when they joined us for the cemetery last year, that was fast.

Yeah, that was another one. So maybe I'll extend that. I should have extended that invitation to him as well.

Yeah, that was incredible. Learned so much.

And that was one of our most well-exended tree walks we've ever had that one last year.

For sure.

Yeah.

It was a great, great theme. I like the idea of so close to Halloween doing a cemetery.

Braves from, you know, over a hundred years ago. Anybody else have anything they want to add on the tree walks?

Just to clarify, historic preservation is going to join the old town walk.

And then I think, you know, for what Amy was just talking about, I'll extend the invitation to them as well for October, but they've given the thumbs up for September already. Anybody have any other business they want to bring?

Where do we meet in Old Town then? Where's the starting point for Old Town? Why?

did it right on the corner out there last time oh just right here in front of town hall okay but that's why the way we did it last time too is like a week before a group of us met and just kind of like walked around and got a rough idea of like hey here's the maybe five or six spots that we want to stop and talk right we went to the tree that got hit by lightning yeah we went over to the catalpa so we'll get a rough idea how we can link that up with hpab and

Yeah, if we can just work on getting the word out earlier, I think we would definitely have much better attendance. Yeah, I'm happy to keep just doing what I can from my end, but it's a professional method of getting the word out. It's just me announcing it.

Tim has a social media team, so yeah, we should leverage some of that stuff to our audience. That's all I got. Anybody else have anything they want to add?

I have a new tree that I had to dump water on despite watering it twice a week. Oh, no. Hopefully that's okay.

What kind of tree?

Five-gallon bucket. It was just a hawthorn.

Yeah.

But it was, like, it just, like, I could tell it was, like, nice. Yeah. Yeah.

You water it twice a week. How are you watering it?

Because it's dedicated. Oh, good. Okay.

Yeah. When did you plant it? In the fall. So it's probably not completely. It's closer. It's mulched. Did you mulch it in?

Yeah, it has some mulch around it, but it's also in a rock bed. So it might get dry.

Yeah.

I think I lost one of my northern pecans.

Oh, no. I got two at one of the Arbor Days. I think one is shuffled out. So what came in is one of the catapas that we planted with my son at preschool. I was going into eighth grade, so that finally went on the ground.

Did it wake up this spring or did it just never wake up?

Yeah, I thought it did. And then all of a sudden now it's shooting up like two suckers and I'm like, ah, this thing's done. So what are we going to do?

Maybe a little other business. Are you guys hearing and seeing the Japanese beetle menace across your...

I'm not, and I lost it last year, and we don't have it this year. That's great.

Did you do anything differently this year than you did last year?

No, so it really liked morning glory, so I didn't plant it, but I had some volunteers that I didn't notice, and now it's growing. We have a lot of it, and I don't want any beetles, so I don't know what's going on. Well, I... That doesn't mean I won't.

Me and the beetles seem to like the same plants, so I've planted two lindens in the backyard, and they're all over those lindens. They love the blooms.

They're on, like, grapevines. Oh, grapevines. Grapevines, yeah.

They're obsessed with it. I haven't looked. I have to look near linden, too. There it goes. I just... Blast them into the neighborhood. But that might have been something we need to maybe write about on another podcast.

maybe next summer just try to add us because it's just it's all over facebook it's all over just like a deeply complex issue that like even in 700 words i don't think you can get touching because like it drives me insane every time i go and see a japanese beetle trap somewhere because those i think are misinformed and everyone is like milky spore or let me use chemicals or whatever it doesn't mean anything if they're not treating the fields and miles in their adult life so it's such like a brutally hard issue but to the point of why we need to talk about it you know the western slope eradicated it 20 years ago and it was because everybody came together okay it was like a joint effort like a lot of you what what did they big things is people willing to lose their lawns over the winter because they over winter is grubs in exclusively kentucky bluegrass and so if you dry those out in winter the grubs die okay

There was some question as to what, you know, maybe why you're having not a problem is because such a dry winter.

But it came, what I've heard, for me, it went from zero to 100 in the last 10 days. I didn't see any almost until the end of June. And I caught like 30 or 40 last night alone on one blackberry bush. So I'm more like, I'm curious if we're going to start seeing them that way. Because I was hopeful of that same thing. And when it was like late June, I was like, this is late for them.

And then... Well, and I just saw a post on Green Thumbs, a Varia gal that was seeing where Colorado is... putting out, like introducing natural forms of, let me see if I can find where she wrote about it. like a certain fly or a certain parasite that will lay their eggs on the beetle itself. And then it will become the toast and it will kill the, kill the beetle. And like, you know, it was showed a picture of it. It's like, if you're out there, like, collecting with your soapy water and you can see the eggs on the beetle. So to try to leave that beetle so that it continues the life cycle of that parasite. Thank you.

I've heard it used somewhat successfully in boulder like they released all the parasitoid wasps and i think it like took out like 20 to 30 percent like it was it was cool i'm i've not heard it used for like japanese people though okay that's cool too yeah yeah so there's i mean there's other things you can do that aren't you know like real but like planting certain things that are attracting more of their yeah that

No, the parasites, yeah.

It's been a while. Virginia creeps right back and they won't touch any of your other hair.

Or just have lindens.

This is the saddest thing because I've been in Denver in August and seen defoliated lindens. It's terrible. Yeah. But no, you're right. We should acknowledge it because it's an issue that's going to only grow in importance. But at the same point, you know, I've always gotten the feeling that it's probably naive that it's going to work itself out because the story of Japanese beetle is they're obviously not native here. They came into New York City ports, they think, in 1909. Okay. It has been on the East coast for well over a hundred years. And I grew up working in nurseries and outside in New York city and stuff. And I don't remember Japanese beetle ever being an issue that people discuss in any big form. It was there, but it was just some years it was worse than others and just kind of, you know, trapped the ones that could or collected them and moved on. And there's other issues to deal with. So I have a feeling that it's going to work itself out. Plus the sentiment on EAB in the last year is that it's mellowed out. So sometimes these books don't blow up as fast as people think.

But it is an issue. Like, it's just, you know, I work and I'm getting asked about it. I'm getting calls about it. And, you know, just for something for people to, you know, I think it's something that needs to be on our radar to address, to look more into, to write about. Yeah.

Is there another way that we can talk to people about it besides the newsletter? Because that way we would want to do like in the next month or two by October.

I know. I mean, I feel like we're kind of like late in the game this year.

We could ask Tom to see if there's something he could put out. You know, separate little two-sided thing about, two-sided sheet about it. And should we be handing that out at all our events? Well, maybe it could be emailed out. Maybe it could be. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Are we not able to do a special newsletter? Sure. Breaking news.

Something to talk to Tom about, too, because maybe he's like you, where it's like it's going to work itself out. It's not an issue. But I would imagine he's probably got trees that are... Deal with this issue at last.

The Japanese veto. The Japanese veto.

Not a ton as far as like inventories, medical plans, like that kind of thing goes. We have an entomologist on staff that knows a ton about lots of different insects. There's a, what's it called, like a tree healthcare workshop up in Greeley, if people are like wanting to get more involved and get more information. And they did a little bit of a talk on it like two years ago, which is pretty good. They do it annually. The workshop thing. Get more information. But yeah, I mean.

I think I went. Okay. Yeah, we should, whatever we say, I think it's important to make sure that we're referencing like the CSU's research and other universities research and a common message. And like, you know, what's the Colorado State Forest Service trying to put out? Or, you know, what's Davey saying? Just try to make sure it's a unified message.

100%.

I think that's a really good idea. So I'll send Tom a note next week when he's back in town and just see if there's something that we can do to put something together and then tap into our newsletter email chain, like you said, and then potentially have something that we're actually handing out moving forward. Because even at Arbor Day, if you have bad experience this summer, it's going to be in your head next April. Or you still remember yours from last year.

I mean, if you put up a...

webpage on the tree board maybe can be mentioned in the water bill oh nice yeah you know and that way you're not taking up all the water bill but your little section on Japanese beetles visit this website for more information some idea and being that it's in the front of a lot of people's minds it might be enough to get them to go and engage further okay great idea Just have a bunch of Japanese beetle, a photo of a bunch of Japanese beetles. Actually, you should just go to my grape leaves where you can just see through them.

And we'll get you to wear a Japanese beetle suit next year. Fair enough. After the Emerald Ash Wars. so there's there's an emerald ash borer suit that's just been circulating around colorado and tom got his hands on it for a little bit and terry with the town wore it and then brian wore it at one point but i've seen like other industry people wearing it like i've seen it at pro green before down in denver so i think it just kind of circulates now i'm not sure i want to wear that thing again

Again, more than just EAB. I'm like 90% sure it's the same one.

Great. That's where that itch came from.

Exactly. Good. I'm glad you guys said that.

if you wouldn't mind like cc me whatever you mentioned to tom or talk to tom about ccu on the email i said um like i said i'll wait till i can be happy to do that so how is the parasite introduced is it like i gotta find that big wasps do they i don't remember like eab

Yeah, the parasitoid wasps have specific habitats, but if it works around stream corridors, they need the water and moisture. But yeah, you can get them from the USDA, and then you release them with the USDA's help.

This might be a naive question, but can it be somehow packaged and given out to residents somehow?

Well, it sounds like, so this is the article.

That is a no. This is the article. Exactly. Just by some laws.

She said that they have been introducing biocontrols since 2015 in Colorado to help reduce the beetle. Biocontrols will not harm other beneficial insects or pollinators. They aren't allowed to purge. They aren't allowed for purchase or allowed distribution by the general public. We have found one of these biocontrols in Arapaho County now, the winsome fly. It's a parasite that will lay its eggs on the beetle and take over the beetle when the eggs hatch, essentially killing the Japanese beetle and preventing it from mating and multiplying. um and then that's where it says it advises to pick off japanese beetles off your plant but it's very easy to see the winsome fly eggs on there and leave that and they and it's on the thorax so here's their picture yeah so oh that's so cool it's so nice yeah all right

White spots.

Stuff is happening. That's encouraging. Very cool.

That's barbaric.

It takes over.

Do you know that there's a bindweed mite? It's the same program. You have to go through the USDA. They often want you to report back information, but I've been reading a ton of people that are using bindweed mites. How do I get my hands on that? Just Google it. It'll take you through where you have to register. I'm pretty sure they want a little bit of follow-up to understand better. I know places in South Denver have used it a bunch. I've seen it work. a lot better than I expected it to look. Just by pictures. I've never seen it in person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So just some kind of interesting stuff.

That was a great idea. I mean, we do need to acknowledge. I think I'm so free from the retail.

Just at the retail side of it, like how it's all the phone calls that I get. It's all the people coming to me while I'm out with the plants. And what do I do?

When I was in Boulder, still working at that garden center there, the last couple of years, we were selling like thousands of those Japanese plant traps. It was insane. Because it was, yeah, like once you get to this time of year, it was like every fourth question you got.

Well, and then we're selling those. And I, you know, just out of curiosity, I tried them last year and they are fantastic. very effective like I had bag loads of them and in my mind I'm like okay that's that many in the last that are laying eggs in my everywhere and then procreating the following year but yes I was getting Japanese beetles from the entire neighborhood and but if the city of boulder sent one of those to every person then i think you can make a difference the issue is when you're the only one in your neighborhood now then the question is is i have two lindens that are being attacked should i have that out there so that they're going to it because they are highly successful like it's you know they're attracting through the pheromones I mean, and that's where I'm like, I've said I've waffled this year. I'm like, should I just do it just to protect the trees or should I, or am I just more and more in general?

That's always been the theory. Like if you don't have one, maybe you have a hundred on your property. If you do have a trap, you might have 200 in the trap, but you're going to have 200 on your property now. But that's why if you could get your neighbors, if Erie sent one to everybody, and we did this for years, and this is a complete theory, I think at that point we could actually knock down populations because it's everybody coming together. And if you put that on top of like milky spores in the right places or potentially like harsher chemicals where they're needed because they are effective. It's a concerted effort. I brought it up. This is how we start by making everything.

If the entire town is on board with applying milky spore grow backs and everyone has a trap in their yard and you're trapping your own beetles and not your neighborhood's beetles. Yeah. I mean, that would be one way of doing it and getting the word out in this manner. It'd be the way to do it.

We have 15-ish thousand homes in this town. Those are about $10 each.

You get the town to spend.

Oh, you get a bulk.

You kind of get a bulk. For sure. So I had one of those one year. And one morning I looked out and it was shredded.

I think a raccoon had a bag dinner. No, we're talking all about these wasps.

So what I do to them, and this is extra cruel slash not. So last night when I was collecting them, we have this glass mason jar that we've devoted to this. So I'll go and collect them, seal them up, let them sit for 24 hours in the sun. And they're chicken fruit. Chickens can't catch them otherwise, but if I fry them for 24 hours, they eat like 100 of them in there. I have six chickens. They'll be gone in four minutes.

Geraniums, blooms, they eat those. Those could be your sacrificial blooms because it stuns them and they'll die on the ground below a geranium.

Really? Sounds cool. That's awesome.

Great animals for us to grow that you can bring inside.

Your sacrificial... Yes. So then all your bugs are getting eaten by the geranium.

They're nightmare. Like you can't let them out in our garden. They will rip up every single. So if I put a geranium in there, it'd be dead. They will eat chicken. They will eat their own egg. They eat everything except onions and garlic. Savages. But I'm turning my Japanese beetles into... Every day is for you. That's exactly it. That was an awesome day. Any other business before I adjourn the meeting? All right. It is 7.23 here on the 8th, and the Tree Advisory Board meeting is adjourned. Thank you.