Shreveport Man To Plant 1,000 Fruit Trees This Winter

Some are calling him Shreveport's Johnny Appleseed but we know him as John-Paul Young and he has big plans this winter! John-Paul is planning to plant over 1,000 Fruit Trees all over the Shreveport area. He's got more big plans for the future as well.

John-Paul tells us these trees will help with flooding and erosion saying "Erosion control methods are also tree habitats. I have made many on my farm and a few in town, and I am going to fill up all of them with food producing trees this year to turn our flood producing rainfall into food producing orchards."

Right now he's working on making sure everything is ready for the trees building what's called Swales. John-Paul tells us the Swales "Now they are filled in with logs, sticks, and wood chips to soak up them water so that it will absorb into the ground. The fruit trees will be planted all up and down these trenches and be watered by them automatically forever." Below is an example of one of his Swale the Centenary students helped build for a service project.

John-Paul says he's hoping to have 400 planted in highland park and the rest in areas throughout the town. If you're interesting in helping plant the trees or if you'd like to learn how you can get some in your yard you can join his Facebook group Shreveport Orchard Squad. Saturday January 28th will be the first big planting day!

Some other groups doing similar things around town to follow on Facebook are ReForm Shreveport and Shreveport Green!