NHS Volunteering with Trees for Houston

On December 3, 2022, members of the National Honor Society (NHS) helped Trees for Houston plant 100 trees on Wilcrest Drive. 

Leaving at 8:30 a.m. sharp, Post Oak High School’s bus carted students over to the landscaping site located on three esplanades along the road. After unpacking wheelbarrows, trash cans, tables, chairs, tents, gloves, and snacks, students geared up and headed over to the digging site to begin their day of service. 

Along with the Alief Super Neighborhood Council and other student volunteers, we began to dig holes as deep as the pot of each tree. As some students put their muscles to the test digging, others distributed watering bags and packs of nutrients to each hole. Vice President of the NHS, Andy W. (’23), helped to organize this event, and sadly had to leave us right after showing off his digging skills—he was much faster than the rest of us. Soon, it was time to unload the various saplings that Trees for Houston provided. 

Once the trees had been set about, we gathered around to hear a short lecture by a prominent landscaper that worked with the City of Houston. Unfortunately, he informed us that we had made the holes too deep but also too narrow—if we plant them too deeply, the dirt will sink and the sapling becomes susceptible to root rot. If the hole is too narrow, the roots won’t have enough space to grow at all. Feeling slightly discouraged and very sweaty, Niko C. (’24) and a few other students recuperated, persevered, and began the adjustments, with others beginning to plant the saplings. It wasn’t a problem that the Post Oak students couldn’t fix! 

Once we started to get our hands dirty planting trees, a truck from Living Earth came to dump an enormous pile of mulch on one of the esplanades. Everything was going quite smoothly until the truck almost took out one of the wires that was dangling across the median. With a little bit of frantic yelling from everyone, this disaster was avoided. Students also got to learn how the decomposition of wood produces heat, making the mulch abnormally warm—and boy did it smell interesting. Distributing the mulch to each tree, we soon realized that we had to get rid of the entire pile of mulch, unbeknownst to us beforehand. First stopping to have a banana, a bottle of water, or a lukewarm, slightly melted cupcake, students got to work.

Hundreds of wheelbarrows and buckets of mulch later, we were finished. Through teamwork, sweat, and a lot of mulch, we successfully planted 100 trees along the median. Making our way over to the meeting point, a few cars honked and waved, with one driver even shouting a “thank you!” at us. Gleaming with pride, NHS members were encouraged by one of the leaders of the project to revisit the esplanades in a few decades and “walk amongst the shade.” With a sense of fulfillment and completely caked in mud, students huddled together for one final picture before filing into the bus, knowing that the first thing they’d do when they’d get home was take a shower. 

And now for the glorious process behind planting trees: 
First, you take the sapling out of the pot and “massage” its roots, allowing for the tree to continue developing roots as it grows. Once you do this, you make sure that the visible base of the sapling is approximately two inches from the ground. Before planting it, sprinkle the nutrients into the hole and then place down the sapling, filling in the gaps with excess dirt and patting it down as you go. After this, you simply place the watering bag around the tree and cover it with dirt (the bags are biodegradable!). These watering bags contained a combination of ice and water that would gradually dissipate over time, keeping the trees saturated for two to three months. With that, you have just planted a tree!