Scholastic Spotlight: Ifedayo Omotunde

The Man of the Trees
Omotunde, Ifedayo
Grade: 12
School: Park River Area High School, Park River ND Educator: Kierstin Hurtt
AWARD: Silver Key

The work starts on a late morning before the fog completely lifts. A short ride in a beat- up pick up full of an odd assortment of pruning shears, garden trowels, and plant clippings delivers me to the spot where I will work. Once I get there, I realize the area is bigger than I thought. Even so, the job seems easy; I just have to pull some plants out of the ground. The garden is beautiful, with tall wheat-like grasses framing an ornate metal arch with a garden bench, accented by colorful flowers. Small and medium size trees provide the whole area with shade, and to the right a great boulder stands guard. The boulder is a striking, yet ordinary grey mass about ten feet tall, entirely solid, radiating a gentle sturdiness. That boulder could be used as quite an accurate description of the man that I was volunteering for: Joel Hylden.

Joel is a man who is the picture of the middle-class, Protestant, North Dakotan, quite ordinary. He could be described almost as an ent from The Lord of the Rings. He radiates a gentle sturdiness, with kind eyes and a muted youthfulness. His beliefs are of the old- spirit, of getting back to our roots. He believes in people learning about nature and embracing the beauty of God’s creation, not constricting it to man’s ideal sense of beauty. He also believes that “everyone should be taught how to prune a tree properly.” He has a fatherly wisdom about him, wisdom that he teaches to anyone that will listen; a wisdom of doing things the way God wants.

A deeply religious family man, Joel has a down-to-earth, quiet demeanor. He is the rock of every room he walks into. His home is full of life, the way it was meant to be: natural. Nature peeks out
everywhere, from the decorations on the wall to the plants growing outside, to the birds in their barn in the backyard. His faith is evident in his description of himself: “A man who loves and is loved by God.” This faith is what drove him to do something for the community in 1989. That something became the Park River Centennial Trees.

North Dakota is not what you would consider beautiful. Miles and miles of flat land, broken occasionally by shelterbelts, is cultivated for a specific task: growing crops. The landscape is designed like a machine. However, when walking on the bike path in Park River, you get a glimpse of beautiful nature. Many different kinds of flowers line the path, trees spread their arms gracefully, and even the weeds look beautiful. Field mice scurry beneath grasses, and birds fly out of the way as you pass. This is what a bike path should look like. This is what Joel Hylden saw in his mind when he decided to start this project in 1989.

The idea to start an arboretum started when Joel was a child. As a young boy he would go into the garden to tend the flowers with Grandma Hylden. There he learned the names of plants and how to take care of them. He also learned how to appreciate all flowers for their natural beauty, including the weeds. As he grew and admired others’ gardens, his interest diversified. It was then he discovered his interest in trees. However, for this plant lover, bushes or shrubs were mediocre at best. It was less the plant itself, but how we treated them. Most people who grow bushes cut them to unnatural shapes. He attended a gardening class where an expert lecturer told the group not to give the bushes in your
yard the "butch haircut" look, solidifying his opinion. He said the plant was created by God to look a certain way and if we gave the bush the opportunity to take on its own look, we would be surprised by its incredible beauty. Joel has grown bushes that way ever since. Now he’s had the opportunity to plant over a hundred types of trees and hundreds of types bushes, the way God wanted.

When he started the project to beautify the city’s bike path, he didn’t get the support he would have wanted. Some thought he was crazy, yet he decided to pursue it anyway. Once he started, he didn’t stop. Since he started in 1989, he has spent over $7,000 of his own money on the project, as well as providing his own water, gas, and maintenance for the vehicles that he uses to get plants. He also spends over 250 hours a year working on this project. He says, “On a pretty regular day of my life, since 1989, the two things that occupy most of my free time are studying the Bible and studying plant catalogs. Always learning about God and His beautiful creations. I have always had a few loves in my life: God, of course, my beautiful wife and children, but then comes people and God's beautiful creation of plants and animals.”

Since he started, Joel’s gotten some help from the City of Park River, by the addition of a water spigot and a yearly allowance of $3,000, though he never uses that much. He’s also received help in different ways. When he first dreamt of the project, he imagined three rows of flowering crabapple trees; one row of white, one row of red, and one row of pink. When he presented his idea to the Park River City Council, he was denied and was devastated. He thought they didn’t like the idea, and took it personally. He later realized that they were trying to help. They said that the idea had a major flaw: when you plant only one type of tree, the incident for diseases or insects becomes far riskier. One infected tree can destroy the entire path. They suggested that he diversified the trees he wanted to plant. Since then when he got the approval for the project he’s planted two of every type of tree. He’s also received much more praise and support from the community. The community has helped with buying trees, and they’ve also given time and effort to help with gardening and maintenance.

It takes a lot of work to follow through with a dream like this. To plant a single tree, he starts off with a lot of research. He researches the tree in catalogs, the Internet, and tree books in his own personal library. Once he has gained enough knowledge that the tree can grow in our climate, he has to find it in the Nursery Trade. If he finds an available tree, that he has not already planted, Joel plants it in a place on the path that he has chosen for its size. Normally that means at a forty-foot spacing with any other tree. Thisallows the tree to grow and show off its beauty without influence from other trees. Once he plants the tree level with the ground, and the dirt on the potted tree, he then adds about two or three inches of wood chips in about a four feet radius. This aids water retention in the soil and keeps the weeds down, though it doesn’t stop all of them. Various sprays are applied to keep the weeds at bay. The trees are watered five gallons every week for a few weeks of the growing season. Once planted, each tree will require maintenance for the rest of its life. This includes pruning about once a year for every tree. Every tree has a different requirement for pruning. Some trees only need about five to fifteen minutes, some trees require an hour or two. This work goes into every tree that is planted on the one-mile long stretch. It’s even more amazing that aside from his lessons from his grandmother, he is completely self-taught in his art. This shows the true commitment this man puts into God’s creations.

So there I was, on my knees with a trowel in my hand, digging out weeds. Remember all those beautiful grasses I saw earlier? It turns out they were all weeds. After close to four and a half hours on the path, I’m finally done. I’m helped to Mt. Dew and some tart North Dakotan grapes. I look back at the work Joel and I did, and I realize how much we’ve done. Though the ground looked like it was trampled by a herd of wild buffalo, and about half the plants were gone, it still looked beautiful. Joel turns to me and thanks me, saying if I hadn’t volunteered he would have more than likely done this by himself. I tell him I would do it any time. Even though it was hard work, it was fun. I enjoyed being closer to nature, closer to what God made for us. Mr. Hylden shares that same sentiment: “When God created everything He said it was good, very good. I am looking forward to the day when He comes back to earth to restore it to its original beauty.” And as we drove away, I just kept thinking, “What a beautiful world indeed.”