Kelley Smith, an arborist with his own company, Feral Solutions Tree Care & Consulting, is a member of the Till Utopia Garden group and led the event. The four trees planted were a redbud, American plum, elderberry and chokeberry. 

"If they go home and plant trees with their family or they move to a new house and plant trees, they’ll be able to do that more effectively," Smith said. "I always like to say there’s no such thing as a bad tree, just a bad location."

Montie House invited Smith to the event to show them where to plant the trees. He walked the group around the property and gave detailed descriptions about the trees already on their property and the best places to add new ones. He said Till Utopia focuses on native trees with some edibility or medicinal use. 

"It seems like some also don’t like to plant fruit-producing trees in the public ways because of the 'mess' they make," Smith said. "But if people are willing to steward more food-producing trees, not only for humans but for wildlife and insects, we thought it’d be a fun project to get started."

The co-op’s social chair, Charlotte Nana Mayworm, is a member of the Michigan Healthy Climate Corp. She was first looking to obtain a grant from the Department of Natural Resources but soon found that the house was a 501C7 non-profit instead of the necessary 501C3. 

"It’s a food desert in this area and getting fresh produce nearby is very expensive," Mayworm said. "The bus rides are long to get to a bigger grocery store and not everybody drives."

She said the housemates do a lot to support each other like sharing groceries and space, and fruiting trees could help make them stronger. She then got into contact with Till Utopia Gardens, as their community outreach fit the bill perfectly. 

"This will support our food access, our tree canopy equity in a sense, and it makes people happy," Mayworm said. 

Mayworm said there were several prepping steps involved in the event. She called the "MISSDIG811" line, which connected them to a nonprofit organization that placed flags and spray paint where the utilities are. This non-profit’s work helped ensure they were safe and responsible when digging and helped Smith pick out the best spots for their new trees. 

Smith shared the same notions of responsibility when it comes to planting any kind of tree. He thinks education is an important step in projects like these.

"Teaching people about trees really is kind of a passion of mine," Smith said. "I really do think that a more resilient society is built when we all kind of have a little bit of understanding of the natural world around us. A lot of people plant trees that go on to be fantastic and some of them plant trees poorly, too close to homes that become kind of a liability."

One of the attendees, Jo Vicari, moved to the Lansing area to do AmeriCorp and has just recently moved into the Montie house. She said she’s planted trees before as a kid and was interested to see what Smith had to say about planting them correctly. 

"I feel like I’ll end up doing it again so I want to know how to do it good," Vicari said. "There’s a lot of times you plant them and they just don’t do well."

She said there were several bits of information sticking with her, like why some trees might do better than others in different plots. 

"(Smith's) got a lot of good tidbits, he’s an arborist," Vicari said.