trees

The 100-acre tree nursery at George O. White State Forest, in Licking, Missouri, serves 13,000 customers a year — in the Show-Me State and beyond. Pawpaws are one of their most popular orders.

The University of Missouri Extension and the Department of Conservation are enlisting landowners to plant and care for white oak seedlings. The tree species is essential for wildlife and industry, but it's struggling under climate change.

The Giving Grove, a Kansas City nonprofit that works with residents of under-resourced communities to grow orchards, will translate their educational gardening materials into 12 different languages. Plus: Midwest scientists and enthusiasts are working to preserve and popularize heirloom varieties of collard greens.

Why throw your Christmas tree in the dump when you can “treecycle” it? Here’s how and where you can make the most of your unwanted trees after the holidays.

The Giving Grove, a nonprofit that works with residents of under-resourced communities to grow orchards, will translate their educational gardening materials into 12 different languages. Non-English speaking communities face barriers to accessing the free fruit and nuts because information has been printed only in English.

Hundreds of families come to Christmas Ranch Tree Farm in Excelsior Springs every year to decorate their homes for Christmas. Owners Carol and Roy Freeman make sure visitors have everything they need, including tree trimming and homemade hot chocolate for the journey.

Trees cool cities, soak up greenhouse gases and make people healthier, and Kansas City is planting thousands of them. It's more than halfway to its goal of adding 10,000 trees by 2026, and won a grant from the U.S. Forest Service.

Kansas City has committed to planting 10,000 trees in three years. But the city's existing tree canopy is relatively old and under stress by climate change and other factors.

Nearly 75% of Kansas City, Missouri, residents live in a heat island where temperatures can be at least eight degrees higher on any given day. That presents serious health and energy concerns, but efforts to cool these areas down are gaining steam.

We normally think of trees as being good for the environment. But in parts of the Midwest and Great Plains, they're actually heating up the earth as woodlands take over grasslands.

We normally think of trees as being good for the environment. But in parts of the Midwest and Great Plains, they're heating up the earth as woodlands take over grasslands.

Fifty-four years after the first annual Earth Day, many people are making environmental sustainability their business. KCUR's Up To Date spoke with Kansas Citians whose livelihood is saving the planet.