Around Town
VIDEO: New Canaan Honors Dick Reifers with Arbor Day Sycamore at Mead Park
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In the last year of his life, New Canaan’s Dick Reifers is remembered by one close friend as planting an endangered tree on his own property, the Metasequoia glyptostroboides or “dawn Redwood”—which interested Reifers after its rediscovery in China about 70 years ago. On Friday, New Canaan friends, relatives and town officials remembered Reifers as an civic-minded, avid gardener and generous member of the community, in honoring him with the Arbor Day planting of a sycamore tree on the banks of Mead Pond. New Canaan Marks Arbor Day 2014
Trees that in recent decades is known for carrying a disease that makes them lose their leaves midsummer instead of in the fall, George Valchar said, sycamores yet often live 140 years or more, and are among the tallest in this area, sometimes reaching 160 feet. “Let’s hope that our young American sycamore will survive the early years and then will grow into a giant 150-feet-tall tree with branches turning white with a little green and a little gray, and that the citizens of 2200 as they walk by will admire the great Dick Reifers American Sycamore,” Valchar said at the pond moments before he and others spread soil over the base of the sycamore to mark the day. The event included a proclamation by First Selectman Rob Mallozzi that was delivered by Selectman Beth Jones.