Blogs

It’s hard to believe that yet another season is almost complete in our Urban Forest Demonstration Gardens. Although we’re sad that we can’t get our hands dirty all year long, we can take the cold weather as an opportunity to reflect on our successful season.

This year brought lots of exciting opportunities for LEAF, including a partnership with the Town of Richmond Hill to engage the community and increase urban canopy cover. Through five different events during the spring and fall of 2018, we planted over 1250 trees and shrubs to enhance Richmond Hill’s urban forest!

On the morning of Saturday, September 15th community members from the King area joined LEAF, the Township of King and the Reginal Municipality of York for a public tree planting event! Even though it was a hot, balmy day, energy levels were high and everyone’s excitement could be seen as tree after tree went into the ground.

As part of LEAF’s 2018 Young Urban Forest Leaders (YUFLs) program, Armita, Farheen, Megan and Sneha joined efforts with Our Place Initiative to launch a new Adopt-A-Park-Tree program in Centennial Park. To introduce the program, a public Tree Tour and stewardship event was held at the park on Sunday, August 26th, 2018. Though it was a hot summer afternoon, there was great community turn out with lots of excitement, energy and great stewardship spirit!

On August 22nd, members of the community congregated for an informative tree tour through Trinity Bellwoods Park. Over the summer, four of LEAF’s 2018 cohort of Young Urban Forest Leaders (YUFL), Stephanie Clark, Sam Hayden, Julia Spina, and Melissa Szopa, worked with the community group Friends of Trinity Bellwoods to prepare for this event.