While walking her dog earlier this year, Raegan Carpenter pondered career options. The 24-year-old had done some landscaping and thought she might enjoy work that involved trees. When she got home, she googled “arborist training” and found a result for a program at Tree Trust, a St. Paul nonprofit organization.
Fast forward to a recent cool late-October morning, which found her planting a linden tree along Furness Parkway on St. Paul’s East Side. Carpenter trimmed off the excess roots that grew in the tree’s nursery container and peeled away layers of dirt to find the root flare — the area where the tree’s main roots connect to the trunk. A crew member dug a hole with a large auger, and she buried the roots in the ground, carefully adding water and stomping down excess soil with Tree Trust senior trainer Emily Cleaver.
Tree Trust has a contract with the city of St. Paul to plant new species aimed at replacing the thousands of ash trees lost to emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has destroyed ash across the Midwest. The nonprofit planted 715 trees in the spring and 850 more this fall.
The St. Paul contract specifically uses crews in Tree Trust’s Branches program, which pays young people interested in arborist work for a 10-week training course.
That’s what Carpenter signed up for, and she’s enjoyed the work.
“I get up in the morning, and I’m like, ‘I can’t wait to go plant trees,’” she said.
Each Branches cohort has 10 to 15 participants who receive introductory arborist certification and a well-rounded sampler of tree industry tasks, from planting and pruning to landscape work.
“For a lot of them, it’s figuring out if they like it or not,” said Keegan McKye, a senior trainer with Tree Trust.