Tree Planting to Add Shade at Libbey Bowl

Fifteen trees are ready to be planted Saturday at a communitywide celebration at Ojai’s Libbey Bowl amphitheater.

The community tree celebration, which will add new shade trees to the amphitheater, will also be marked with musical and theatrical presentations.

Sponsored by Ojai Festivals, which organizes Libbey Bowl’s annual classical music festival, the free event will begin at 10:30 a.m. when the public is invited to help the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy’s Tree Care Corps, city of Ojai and Ojai Garden Club plant the trees.

Shovels will be provided and the holes for the 15-gallon sycamore and oak trees will already be dug.

Four large sycamores, each providing a 20-foot canopy, and one large oak tree have also been purchased and already have been planted at Libbey Bowl.

At 11 a.m., free performances by the Ojai Shakespeare Festival, the Ojai Mexican Fiesta, Bowlful of Blues and Illusions Theater will be featured.

The tree-planting project was developed because many of Libbey Bowl’s trees have been heavily pruned or removed because of age, weakness or disease.

“Bit by bit in the last 10 to 15 years, the existing trees have thinned out, gotten diseased, fell down or died, so the area has really not been very shaded,” said Joan Kemper, Ojai Festivals’ executive director.

“We thought about making a shade shelter, but decided why not replant so the next 50 years we’ll have a shaded bowl.”

Since June, about $18,000 has been raised for the tree-planting project, Kemper said.

Also contributing to the Libbey Bowl Shade Tree Project are: the Ojai Civic Assn., the Ojai Garden Club, the Ojai Mexican Fiesta, David Zucker and California Releaf, the tree-planting grant program of the California Department of Forestry.

For more information, call the Ojai Festivals office at 646-2094.