Rep. n° 04/2024
Čadca, April 22-24, 2024. Earth Day is a day dedicated to the Planet Earth, which takes place every year on April 22 and is conceived as an ecologically motivated holiday, drawing people’s attention to the impact of environmental destruction and aims to open a discussion about possible solutions to prevent pollution of the environment. The association Servare et Manere, whose important activity is the planting of commemorative trees, in cooperation with the Kysuce Museum, participated in the celebration of the first year of Kysuce Earth Day. The organization sponsored 3 planting trees and also commemorative badges for all participants of the three-day event aimed mainly at school and preschool children. Marek Sobola, landscape architect and Secretary-General of Servare et Manere, and Mr. Martin Mesiarkin from the Department of Environment and Waste Management of the Čadca Municipal Office, jointly prepared a series of author’s lectures with an environmental theme on the occasion of Earth Day. During them, the children learned a lot of information about the protection of nature and the landscape, they learned to recognize the differences between trees, or to measure park trees directly in the field in a creative and interactive way. The series of environmental events in the Kysuce Museum was attended by preschoolers and schoolchildren from the Oriešok Home School, clients of CSS Slniečko Oščadnica, members of the local branch Živena Čadca, pupils of Oščadnica – Nižný koniec and Rázusova Čadca elementary schools. The culmination of each lecture and field exercise was the planting of a commemorative tree, which was planted by school children. Many of them also brought soil from their own garden in paper cones. In this way, they will get a better relationship with the planted trees. The dendrological collection of urban Čadca greenery was enriched by two rare summer oak cultivars, Quercus robur ‘Argenteomarginata’ (A) and Quercus robur ‘Castle Howard’ (B) and common hornbeam Carpinus betulus ‘Lalinok’ (C).
The sponsor of the trees, the Žilina association Servare et Manere, implements the international Tree of Peace initiative around the world. It is an organization with special consultative status within the UN Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC). The Tree of Peace project represents Slovakia under the official state brand “GOOD IDEA SLOVAKIA – IDEAS FROM SLOVAKIA” and is implemented with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic. The main objective of the initiative is to promote the message of peace, friendship between nations and the ideas of tolerance and dialogue between civilizations, cultures and religions through ecologically friendly tree planting. The initiative connects two important issues of our time, the first is peace and the second is the climate crisis. So far, 33 memorial trees of the Trees of Peace have been planted, of which 3 also grow in Kysucie Region: in Vychylovka, in the Natural ethnographic exposition of the Kysuce Museum, in Vysoká nad Kysucou village and in Turzovka town.
Oak ‘Argenteomarginata’ has blue-green leaves with an irregular narrow but sharp white margin. From a distance, the tree looks slightly silvery. It is an interesting and attractive variety that can be used as an original park tree suitable for urban and housing estates. The cultivar has been known since the middle of the 19th century, when it was professionally published for the first time in 1864. Oak ‘Castle Howard’ has variegated leaves that turn brick red in spring. During the growing season, the leaves are green with white or silvery spots, some are even completely white. Carpinus ‘Lalinok’ has a direct connection with the international project Tree of Peace, as it comes from the village where Ondrej Sobola was born in 1880. His tragic fate during the First World War was the inspiration for the creation of this international initiative, which has already been implemented in 20 countries of the world on 4 continents.
