Dozens of local volunteers dig in, plant trees
Shovels large and small were available to volunteers as they planted trees in Victoria Woods Park in Barrie on Saturday morning as part of the Pine Tree Realty Community Tree Planting and Kidds Creek Restoration Project Tour, hosted by Living Green Barrie.
From BarrieToday, October 29, 2022
By Kevin Lamb
Dozens of volunteers streamed into Victoria Woods Park on Saturday morning, picked up shovels and potted saplings, and got to work planting new trees along Kidds Creek, near Sunnidale Park.
The small park off Lillian Crescent is a wide open and mostly a greenspace.
The event was part of Living Green Barrie’s effort to reach their goal of planting 10,000 trees for Barrie by 2024.
Living Green Barrie is a charitable organization that works to try and build a greener community through education by hosting events that engage the residents of the city. Tree planting is just one of those efforts.
Sarah Herr, project director with Living Green, was on hand to help and provide advice to the volunteers taking part.
“It’s a feel-good activity, but we really want people to start taking action on climate change,” said Herr.
“It can be a daunting, gloomy, overwhelming topic, and we just want people to be doing something as simple as planting a tree, and what we are doing today is learning how to plant a tree properly so that it can grow to maturity, everything from digging the right size hole so the roots will grow out, making sure it gets enough water, and breaking up the roots so that they don’t grow in a circle and strangle itself or grow properly,” she told BarrieToday.
Approximately 180 potted trees were planted, with 150 of those supplied by the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority (LSRCA).
Len Skok, owner of Pinetree Real Estate Brokerage, a sponsor of the event, noted the importance of these projects.
“This is our little contribution to try and save the environment for our kids,” he said.
The firm plants a tree for every client that buys with them. They had two potted trees at their office on Dunlop Street that they were growing and planning to bring today, but, sadly, he noted, were stolen on four different occasions.
Peter Shuttleworth, a restoration project specialist with LSRCA, also helped out in several ways.
“We are providing funding for this community event and supporting it with trees and equipment. We’ve been partnering with Living Green for a number of years on various projects,” he said.
“It’s a great way to engage the community and taking some pride in the natural heritage in their neighbourhoods,” said Shuttleworth. “Getting trees in the ground helps wildlife and pollinators, cuts down on the amount of turf grass that we have. It makes the area more beautiful, natural, and vibrant.”
Kidds Creek is recognized as one of the most vital waterways in the city. It is a cold-water stream that empties into Lake Simcoe and is home to a native population of brook trout, notes a release from Living Green Barrie.
Urbanization has affected the stream, with large amounts of stormwater that ends up flowing into the creek unhindered, instead of being soaked up by the wild areas that existed prior to the city’s existence. The result of this, officials say, is damage to the banks and the stream bed that is home to many aquatic species that rely on the stability of the water flow.
The idea of the tree planting effort is to bring back the plants and root systems that will help regain some of that stability so that the native species can thrive once again.
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