A tree grows in Bethany Beach

In honor of Arbor Day and to celebrate Bethany Beach’s recognition as a “Tree City USA,” about 20 area children helped plant a willow oak tree on the grounds of the Bethany Beach Nature Center on April 30.

Coastal Point • Monica Scott
Right, kids get busy planting on Saturday, April 30, at the Bethany Beach Nature Center to celebrate Arbor Day. Above, kids stand in front of their newly planted willow oak tree.

Brett Warner, head of the Bethany Beach Public Works Department, explained to the children that, in order to “help the environment and make everything beautiful,” they were planting the tree.

“When the tree grows and you are old like me, you can say ‘I helped plant that tree!’” joked Warner.

The children raked and shoveled dirt around the tree, stomped on the dirt to pat it down and then finished by watering the tree.

Afterward, the children learned all about bugs from Dr. Dennis Bartow of the Center for the Inland Bays. Bartow showed the children local bugs from the Bethany Beach area, including the “Bethany Beach Firefly” – only found between Dewey Beach and Fenwick Island – and the biggest and strongest beetles in the world.

After the talk, the children went outside to find some bugs of their own.

Each week, the Nature Center, which is a partnership between the Town of Bethany Beach and the Center for the Inland Bays, offers interactive educational activities for children. April’s activities included planting a rain garden, and learning about box turtles, rain and rainbows, bugs and worms.
Coastal Point • Monica Scott
Right, kids get busy planting on Saturday, April 30, at the Bethany Beach Nature Center to celebrate Arbor Day. Above, kids stand in front of their newly planted willow oak tree.

On May 14, the CIB will hold a “Destination Day” at James Farm Ecological Preserve on Cedar Neck Road in Ocean View. Children can come anytime between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. that day and enjoy being “under the kid’s activity tent” at the annual native plant sale.