A Year of Growth at Linden Park
1Every April, the volunteer crew at Linden Park plants the flower beds along the main path. This spring the park gardener, Ms. Delgado, asked the crew's teen volunteers to run a test. They planted two varieties of sunflower seeds. One variety is sold as a short sunflower and the other as a giant sunflower. Each variety went into two beds: a sunny bed by the playground that gets about 8 hours of direct sun a day, and a shady bed under the oaks that gets about 3 hours.
2Each bed held 10 plants of each variety. Both beds were filled with the same soil mix, and the same drip line watered every plant for the same time each morning. The crew pulled weeds from both beds once a week. On August 1, the volunteers measured every plant from the soil to the top of the flower and the width of each flower, then found the averages.
3Last winter, a storm cracked a large old oak near the pond, and the city cut it down. The crew sanded a slice of the trunk so the growth rings showed clearly. A tree usually adds one ring each year: a light band of wood from spring and a darker band from summer. Most of the growth happens in spring and early summer, and in winter the tree rests. The volunteers measured the width of the six newest rings, from 2020 to 2025, and matched each year to the park's rainfall records from April through September.
4Ms. Delgado reminded the crew that ring width can also depend on other things, such as insect damage, temperature and crowding by nearby trees. These six years had no major insect damage, and no nearby trees were removed.