Scandia man resumes his role as ‘Bone Lake Lorax’

Tom Furey aims to plant more new trees after 2019 tornado destruction

Being referred to as “The Lorax,” someone who speaks for the trees, garners a laugh from Bone Lake resident Tom Furey. Since a tornado hit Scandia’s Bone Lake in 2019, Furey has been trying to replace the trees that were uprooted.

“Now we just have to get all those people that lost their trees to say, ‘Tom, I need 10 of them,’” Furey joked.

Even though it is just his second year caring for the trees in the gravel bed, located behind the Scandia Fire Department, this project was on his mind since the tornado touched down in eastern Forest Lake and western Scandia.

“I want the trees to be growing in Scandia and Bone Lake because it’s really going to help the environment. So that’s really what I want is as many trees as possible,” Furey said.

After last year’s success with the majority of the trees finding a new home, Furey returned to his gravel bed garden on Friday, April 12, to plant 54 saplings, which he’ll sell to locals in the fall.

Despite having a similar amount of trees last year, there were a handful that were not claimed and remained hunkered in the gravel bed through the winter.

“I stopped by a couple times, but I haven’t done anything with it,” Furey said.

Overall, Furey was pleased with how the gravel bed remained in pretty good shape over the fall and winter, allowing him to simply pick up the trees from a nursery in Rochester and plant them this spring.

His goal of promoting local, native biodiversity hasn’t wavered much since starting the gravel bed nursery last year, and he has hopes of starting a nonprofit to continue this work. He said he has no intention of the project to become a form of income, but he said additional funds could help ensure the gravel bed nursery can continue in the future, and he said that would allow for opportunities and benefits for and from potential donors.

“What I sell [trees] for is probably a little bit under what my costs are,” Furey said.

Last year, he let Scandia area residents know what trees were available for purchase and let residents claim them. Furey will soon will notify residents what will be able to claim this fall.

This year’s roster of 54 trees will include serviceberry, river birch, crimson king and red sunset maples, and golden raindrop and prairie fire crabapple trees. His tree selection this year was slightly swayed by area residents wishing he had offered different variations or more vibrant blossoming trees.

“Somebody said, ‘You didn’t have any red-flowering trees.’ So today I bought five [prairie fire crabapples],” Furey said, adding that all the blossoming trees sold last year offered white blooms.

This year, he’ll use a soaking irrigation method in an effort to conserve more water and ensure all the trees have adequate access to the water soaking into the gravel.

“I’m not sure all the trees got as much water as they needed,” Furey said.

A soaker hose will flow into the gravel and saturate it with water, allowing the sapling roots to access it, while decreasing overall evaporation through an overhead irrigation system.

At the end of the gravel bed season last year, Furey hoped residents would keep him updated on the trees’ success after being planted. However, he wasn’t able to keep that good of track of the saplings’ growth post-gravel bed, so he hopes to keep better track this year.

“I hope to start a blog page, and ask people to comment, ‘How are your trees doing? Tell me about it,’” Furey explained.

In another bid to increase biodiversity of native species along the shores of Bone Lake, on Saturday, April 20, he went on a planting spree, and notified residents he’d be boating around Bone Lake with the trees as his passengers, planting them in residents’ yards if they wanted it.

“I’ll stop the pontoon, unload them, put them in the ground and leave,” Furey said.

He thought it was a successful trip in which he planted trees on five properties along the lake.

“There are some people who say I’m doing too much work and don’t have enough time, and that’s probably somewhat true, but we’re trying to find the time to get it done,” Furey said.