November 24, 2011
Amanda Gomm
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Many of you know me as a people mobilizer. As Manager, Volunteer and Community Engagement at LEAF, I don’t often get a chance to really dig in (pardon the pun) to the concepts and difficulties landscape architects face when working to beautify our urban spaces. But I often walk by parks and only see the final product... we “tree people” may even get upset with chosen species or how the trees are planted. What we don’t see is all of the difficult trouble-shooting that’s required in urban planning. So at this years Spreading Roots conference I was excited to listen to Greg Warren talk about designing with trees.
November 23, 2011
Janet McKay
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At the end of November 2011, Toronto City Council will begin reviewing the 2012 budget that will affect many of our city services. There will be urban forest items on the City Council meeting agenda scheduled for November 29th and 30th. Please let your Councillor know today that healthy trees are a priority in your neighbourhood!
November 23, 2011
Jennifer Crinion
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Outside of the Spadina subway station on Walmer Road there is a garden. When I talk about it with others, I refer to it as my own and I am proud to be its steward with my good friend, Asher Miller. When I first visited the plot, there was little more than rubble, garbage, a lonely tree and a lot of work to be done before we could begin planting.
November 21, 2011
Erin Silverstein
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Nina Bassuk describes the way she'll start off with a new group of students: asking them to draw a simple picture of a tree. In this anecdote all of the usual suspects show up - trunks, branches, leaves and even a bird or two to represent wildlife. “But,” she says, “what is glaringly absent from almost all of these tree portraits are the life-supporting root systems.” Bassuk, Professor and Program Leader of the Urban Horticulture Institute at Cornell University, goes on to explain what is wrong with these pictures - and what an eye-opening experience it is.
November 19, 2011
Mark Sherman
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Noel Harding is a Canadian artist with a colourful career spanning over 30 years. You may recognize his large-scale pieces of public art as infrastructure, such as Windsor’s living bridges, Toronto’s free standing wetlands, and Mississauga’s trees planters growing three stories above city hall (represented Canada at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but never re-erected). His work examines the intersection of complex social, environmental and urban planning issues and during the Q and A, I asked him to define his form of functional social environmental design.
November 14, 2011
Jessica Piskorowski
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Starting your own urban forest initiative – or any community initiative for that matter – can be a rewarding learning process. Working with LEAF’s stewardship programs, I regularly get to hear about the amazing initiatives our Tree Tenders Volunteer Training Program graduates and like-minded individuals start up.
November 12, 2011
Andrea Bake
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The keynote speaker at the Ontario Urban Forest Council (OUFC) conference last week was Cecil Konijnendijk, a professor from the University of Copenhagen. He gave a talk on urban forestry in Europe - something I was very interested in because it was a chance to see what the Europeans are doing differently than we are here in North America. It was also a chance to gain ideas of where we can improve canopy cover in our own urban environments.
November 11, 2011
Melissa Williams
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On Thursday, November 3rd, urban forestry enthusiasts gathered at the Toronto Botanical Gardens for the Spreading Roots conference organized by the OUFC and TBG. After procuring coffee and continental breakfast and saying hello to friends and colleagues, we all took our seats and settled in for two days of stimulating tree-related talks.
November 09, 2011
Matthew Higginson
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Few things are more inspiring than planting a living thing and knowing it is going to grow. And rarely do I meet people who plant only for themselves - whether it’s in a community garden or your own backyard - there always seems to be an urge to share it with others. That being said, I was still a little thrown off when they told me I would be spending a day in the field planting trees – after all, I had signed on to be in communications, not planting boots...
November 08, 2011
Kamla Ross McGregor
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Buying a new home this summer was really exciting. My partner and I got a very cute, detached bungalow with a simple backyard, which my husband calls our “bowling alley” because of its shape. But when we bought the house back in July, the sun was intense and it didn’t rain for the whole month. Not only was the house hot but you couldn't be in the yard for more than 10 minutes without feeling like you were being cooked. I knew I needed to do something, so I started thinking about solutions.