Sister Rosemarie Higgins, right, and Sister Yvette Hubert both took the Rhode Island Tree Council program.

NORTH PROVIDENCE The Sisters of the Franciscan Missionary of Mary were in a pickle.

Without a lot of money, they needed help maintaining their expansive grounds, home to a wide variety of more than 600 trees.

So instead of seeking outside assistance — or divine intervention — a few of the sisters signed up for Rhode Island Tree Council’s tree steward program to acquire the skills to care for the grounds themselves.

Sister Rosemary Higgins, a self-described tree hugger, led the charge.

“I am very concerned about the environment and going green,” Sister Higgins said. “I thought, ‘How am I going to do this? We have no money.’  ”

Now the 77-year-old nun can be found spreading mulch around trees, meticulously surveying the health of the trees and overseeing the grounds with her newly developed green thumb.

“It sets you on fire for trees,” Sister Higgins said.

For $55, the tree steward program offers six evening classes and two outdoor lessons in everything tree-related — from tree biology to species, from planting to pruning, from soils to urban forestry. The classes are taught by certified arborists, college professors and forestry employees.

When the classes end, participants must log 30 hours of volunteer work to be certified as a tree steward.

Since it began in 1995, the program has trained 501 stewards, many of whom volunteer their time planning, planting and maintaining tree projects for nonprofit organizations and municipalities. Several cities call Rhode Island Tree for skilled volunteers to carry out landscaping duties.

On occasion, people who have taken the program also have found work in the field, said Jeanne Current, office manager for Rhode Island Tree Council, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving Rhode Island’s tree resources.

“There are people that didn’t have a job, but after the course they got jobs in the landscaping business,” Current said.

SISTER HIGGINS and a few others at the mission went through the program, gained tree-care know-how and found many other future tree caregivers to complete their volunteer work at the mission.For all their grit and energy, hauling several hundred feet of hose around to water trees was daunting for Sister Higgins and her fellow stewards at the mission, and the program connected the sisters with some help.

One of them was Tim Walsh of North Providence, who completed the program last spring and is earning his tree steward certification by working at the mission.

“I live about a mile from the mission and I had no idea about it,” Walsh said. “They are incredible. They do everything and they are all about 5 [feet] 5 [inches] and at least 65 years old.”

Walsh decided to help the sisters with the frequent and extensive watering by building them a water buffalo — a large, mobile tank that holds more than 300 gallons of water.

Walsh said the program has deepened his appreciation for arboriculture.

“There are a lot of things that you might miss,” Walsh said. “Some people say it’s just trees, but there is a lot more to it.”

Walsh, who was recently accepted to the master gardening program at the University of Rhode Island, signed up for the tree steward program simply because he was interested in gardening and caring for trees.

Interest in caring for trees has provided a peculiar least common denominator, attracting everyone from lawyers to nuns to grade-schoolers.

“We have had as little as 11-year-olds and they love it,” Current said.

The program also has a recent high-profile graduate in Jack Cicilline, father of Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, who completed the classes this fall, Current said.

The program is so well regarded that URI wanted to offer it as a class, but Rhode Island Tree declined the offer, Current said. The organization wanted to keep the program inexpensive and accessible.

“We wanted every citizen to be able to do it,” she said.

The Rhode Island Tree Council steward program is offered again next spring. For more information, call (401) 861-1995.

ngarcia@projo.com