The Buchanan Garden Club will host its annual Arbor Day celebration at 10 a.m. Friday, April 24 at the Gazebo at Front and Oak Streets in Buchanan.

As in past years, there will be music and a celebration of the city’s trees.

Guests will be student council members from Ottawa Elementary School and from Buchanan Middle School, as well as students from Buchanan High School’s Earth Science Class.

There will be a blessing of the trees as well as comments by guest speaker, Corbin Detgen.

Melissa Claxton, 2015 Miss Buchanan, will also be in attendance, as well an ensemble from the music department at Buchanan High School.

Arbor Day is observed each year in April to remind Americans that trees play a critical part in the health of the Earth by providing oxygen, windbreaks, shade and building materials. The oxygen-to-carbon dioxide exchange itself makes a case for Arbor Day plantings. For example, each person in the U.S. generates approximately 2.3 tons of carbon dioxide each year. A healthy tree stores about 13 pounds of carbon annually — or 2.6 tons per acre each year. An acre of trees absorbs enough carbon dioxide over one year to equal the amount produced by driving a car 26,000 miles, according to Coloradotrees.org.

The history of National Arbor Day has its roots in Michigan. J. Sterling Morton, originally from Detroit, was the editor of a Nebraska newspaper in the mid-19th Century. With that bully pulpit, Morton encouraged his fellow Nebraskans to plant trees for their many natural benefits. “Each generation takes the earth as trustees” is a quote attributed to Morton and, in 1874, he was behind the effort to make Arbor Day a Nebraska state holiday celebrated each April. By 1882, Arbor Day became a national observance on or near Morton’s birthday, April 22.

The Buchanan Garden Club, which is open to the public, is made up of 40 men and women who meet monthly to learn more about gardening and horticulture in the Midwest.

The club members tend the Gazebo Garden and the Buchanan Welcome Sign Garden at Red Bud Trail and Front Street, as well as the summer flower plantings in the downtown area and the farmers’ market.

For more information about the Buchanan Garden Club contact Kathy Rossow at jkrossow@comcast.net