By Kendrick Brown

The University of Maryland, then known as the Maryland Agricultural College, first acknowledged Arbor Day in 1905. Now, more than 100 years later, UMD keeps the tradition alive with a ceremonial tree planting.

UMD’s Arboretum and Botanical Garden has hosted the event that occurred on Wednesday since 2008, when the campus was acknowledged as an arboretum as part of its continual effort to protect the campus landscape and the environment.

In the years since, the Arbor Day Foundation, Bee Campus by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and High Flyer Bird Campus by Bird City Maryland has designated the campus a Tree Campus.

The species planted during this ceremony was a black gum, a key teaching specimen for plant science classes, according to UMD Arboretum and Botanical Garden Outreach Coordinator Meg Smolinski.

This black gum is being planted to replace the previous one, which had to be removed due to declining health, repairing a part of the campus for the use of all students.

“Our campus landscape is a living laboratory for many of our plant science classes, but also for other classes as well. I’ve seen music classes utilizing our land, landscape, art, dance, creative writing and literature,” Smolinski said.

Director of Landscape and Special Services Karen Petroff hosted the ceremony, acknowledging the campus’s history with Arbor Day and environmental protection. She also said that planting this tree is part of Maryland’s greater campaign to plant five million trees before 2031, this tree being just one small step towards that goal.

At the end of the meeting, six people were recognized for their contributions to the development of the campus’s landscape by getting to be ceremonial shovelers, and thus the first people to turn over the dirt on the planting of this new tree with golden shovels.

These contributors included staff such as Marsha Guenzler-Stevens, the director of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union, and even graduate and undergraduate students making strides in environmental leadership, such as Maura Martin, a junior majoring in landscape architecture.

The crowd for the event was rather modest, filled with plant science students and current faculty alongside retired faculty such as Harry Teabout III, who came after being invited at a luncheon last week.

“I haven’t been on campus for about three years, and this is the first event I’ve come to support,” Teabout said.

When asked why they keep having this event every year, Petroff answered that this is a showcase of the importance of community and giving back to it, even at the smallest of levels.

“It’s a constant reminder to people that we have to reinvest in our communities and that’s communities of people, communities of plants, communities as an institution,” Petroff said.

Featured Image: Ceremonial planting at Hornbake Plaza on April 8, 2026. Photo by Kendrick Brown.