As of June 2024, ISK has grown or purchased and planted over 6,300 native trees.  Of these, about 380 of these have been planted on the ISK campus to date with 250 of them in the Blanchard Community Forest and another 50 in the smaller Miyawaki Forest by the end of the T block.  The latest campus tree planting involved about 100 trees in April of 2024.  While some of the trees (about 200 so far) have been grown in our own nurseries, most of the trees were purchased and then either donated for free to ISK community members or sold for a small donation in support of these projects.

Earth Day and Earth Week 2024 Tree Planting Photos below:  Earth Day and Earth Week Tree Planting Event was organized for April 2024.  This was a collaboration between Grade 5, MS and students from the HS Environmental Science class.  A total of 103 trees were planted on campus or just beyond the campus back wall.

Environmental Science Tree Nursery (Established in Spring of 2024) in the Blanchard Community Forest:  

About 100 1-3m tall Sesbania sesbans seedlings were successfully grown and transplanted into poly bags for planting or sales along with several smaller Croton and Podocarpus seedlings.  NOTE: these will be for sale in the fall of 2024.

Another 195 trees were purchased in early 2024 and 103 of these were planted on campus in April 2024 (during the week after Earth Day).  The total number of trees planted during this event with 5th graders and HS Environmental Science students (see photos above) includes 85 trees on campus, plus another 18 outside the campus wall by the back road planted by Middle School students for Earth Day on April 22, 2024.  

We still have approximately 92 trees remaining to plant.

Image below:  Approximately 100 of the 195 native tree seedlings purchased are still available for campus and teacher housing compound forest restoration in the summer and fall of 2024.

Natural History of Sesbania sesbans from World Agroforestry Center:  "Sesbania sesban is a narrow-crowned, deep-rooting single or multi stemmed shrub or small tree, 1-7 m tall.  The trees usually have a main stem but may develop many side branches if widely spaced.  The many branches give the tree a shrubby appearance.  S. sesban grows well in the subtropics and is significant in extending the nitrogen-fixing forage trees into cooler, higher elevation regions of the tropics.  It has outstanding ability to withstand waterlogging and is ideally suited to seasonally flooded environments.  When flooded, it initiates floating, adventitious roots and protects its stems, roots and nodules with spongy, aerenchyma tissue. It is common along streams, swamp banks and moist and inundated bottomlands.  S.sesban shows some tolerance to moisture stress and tolerates soil alkalinity and salinity to a considerable degree.  One of the major advantages of sesbania over other forage trees and shrubs is its rapid early growth rate, which can be exploited by intercropping it with other slower establishing species for earlier yields.  It has been reported to attain a height of 4-5 m in 6 months.   S. sesban thrives under repeated cuttings and coppices readily, with many branches arising from the main stem below cutting height."  

Students continue to generate new informational pages for any indigenous and exotic tree species not yet documented in the Blanchard Community Forest website under the "Indigenous Trees" section.  Many are currently still incomplete.

Photos below:  Sesbania sesbans seedlings in polybags (now 1-2-3m tall) which are only 8 months old and grown in our seedling nursery.  As of June 2024, we have about 75 of these for sale in the Fall of 2024.   

Create and embed a link to a Google Form for ISK Community members to use for purchasing Sesbania trees (We currently have about 10x at 50 kes/less than 1m tall, and about 40x at 150 kes/1-2m tall, and about 50x at 250 ksh/over 2m tall) with collection  by purchasers from the Environmental Science seedling storage site (near the HS pond).  Sesbania seedlings are shown in the two photos below).   

Note: About 11x small Croton megalocarpus seedlings (1-2 feet tall) and a couple of other seedlings of other species are also present and for sale (100 kes each).  We also have 3 Podocarpus seedlings (still very small and growing before sale).

Collaborative Nursery: Established by the T block at ISK in November 2023, the Collaborative Tree Nursery has a selection of indigenous trees for planting off campus by members of the larger ISK community. The Nursery is a collaboration between the ISK Carbon Neutral Alliance (CNA), the Greenhouse Club and the Merewe Tree Nursery based near Eldama Ravine.  To mark Kenya’s First National Tree Planting Day and to capitalize on the heavy rains (El Nino), students bought 5600 indigenous tree seedlings to add to our existing ISK tree nursery supply. In November of 2023, CNA provided cedar seedlings for free to ISK staff to honor their hard work, encourage tree planting in our community, and help offset our campus carbon emissions. Seedlings were collected from the greenhouse area (follow the QR code instructions at the site). These mature, indigenous seedlings include endangered and protected African cedar trees, which are hardier than exotics such as eucalyptus. Please note that each person can collect a maximum of ten seedlings per day. For ISK community members, cedar seedlings are 100 ksh while other seedlings are 400 ksh. Cedar seedlings are cheaper to encourage replanting to sustain and replenish their endangered population. If you are able to make a donation to CNA’s sustainability initiatives that include promoting biodiversity and supporting Kenyan communities, the mpesa details are on the seedling collection and tracking form (again accessible from the QR code).