We’ve all heard this question before:
“If you could invent a machine that would capture carbon, clean air and water, enrich soil and provide food and shelter, create shade, cool the air, and add beauty and mental health benefits to our neighbourhoods, what would it be?”
The answer is, of course, a tree.
During a recent tree-planting event, a volunteer happily said, “good things come in ‘trees’.” At another, children were overheard saying, “Trees are amazing.” “I love trees.” “I want to plant a tree every day.”
GreenUP’s neighbourhood programs supported the planting of more than 1,500 trees in the Peterborough region this year. Here is a glimpse of the various projects GreenUP has been working on.
Keith Wightman Public School
Students and staff played a big role in helping to design the planting plan for Keith Wightman Public School. They shared information on how they currently use their space, and how they would like to use it in future years.
Students and teachers alike wanted improved shade and spaces that would support more nature connection and outdoor teaching. Students also wanted more play features.
In early October, 160 students, staff, and community members helped plant:
- A 64-square-metre Little Forest with 224 baby trees and shrubs representing 29 different species that will do well in our ecoregion. Though small now, the trees will be quick to establish robust root systems and sprout up quickly.
- A shade grove to support future outdoor classroom space. Some trees were chosen because they grow fast and will provide shade sooner (hackberry), and others were chosen to add texture (sycamore), colour (maple), loose parts play (catalpa), biodiversity support (oak), and other interest to the school yard.
- A wide strip of Staghorn sumac to provide dappled shade near the playground and help buffer noise and pollution from the adjacent road. In the fall, community members might want to make a delicious, vitamin C-rich tea from the fuzzy berries.
In addition to the above projects, a live willow tunnel will be planted in the spring of 2025 for students to enjoy both for play, and to learn the skill of weaving willow.
Trinity Community Centre
Through a collaborative design process with guests and staff of the One City Peterborough program at Trinity Community Centre, a planting plan was developed which included 20 trees and over 94 other plants to help address storm water management concerns, increase food security, and to create shade.
With tremendous support from volunteers, the yard at the Trinity Community Centre now has:
- Two beautiful rain garden planter boxes planted with species such as: brown fox sedge, blue flag iris, switchgrass, silverweed, and swamp milkweed. These boxes will collect rainwater runoff from the roof thereby reducing the amount of water and mud in the courtyard. The side benefit – a flower garden that offers visual interest and supports pollinators.
- A row of birch trees, a black cherry, and a sugar maple. These trees will grow and provide shade for future Trinity Community Centre guests. They will also add beauty to the site and provide habitat for birds and insects. Fun facts: 340 species of caterpillars use black cherry as their host plant. River birch supports 284 species, and the sugar maple supports 238 species.
- A small orchard consisting of apple, pear, peach, and apricot trees as well as some currant and raspberry bushes. Amongst the fruit are ground covers like wild strawberry, creeping thyme, white yarrow and prairie smoke. In a few years, these trees will provide fruit for the picking, and in the meantime, they offer community-building opportunities through stewardship activities.
Both projects were funded through Green Communities Canada’s Living Cities Canada Fund. This initiative aims to advance community-led, equity-focused green infrastructure projects where they are most needed. This fund supported 27 other communities across Canada in similar equity-focused green infrastructure projects this year.
In addition to the planting projects at Keith Wightman and Trinity Community Centre, GreenUP also supported over 150 students and teachers at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School in the installation of a 100-square-metre Little Forest hosting more than 350 trees and shrubs. The school was thrilled to use their yard space to add a wide array of native species to support student learning for generations to come.
If you’ve been doing the math, you might be wondering how this adds up to over 1,500 trees. The overwhelmingly positive response to GreenUP’s 2023 Little Forest fundraising campaign indicated quite the appetite for Little Forests in the community. People wanted to plant them in their back yards!
In response, GreenUP sold DIY Little Forest Kits in the spring of 2024 which supported homeowners and schools in planting 128 square metres of forest that added roughly 450 trees and shrubs to the collective local urban canopy.
GreenUP also partnered with the City of Peterborough to plant 620 trees at Kiwanis Community Park this fall to restore the park’s tree canopy after the loss of some 400 ash trees.
To learn more about GreenUP’s Green Infrastructure initiatives and how you can get involved, visit greenup.on.ca/living-cities/, or contact Laura Keresztesi, neighbourhood and residential programs coordinator, at laura.keresztesi@greenup.on.ca.
