WINDSOR, ONT. -- The City of Windsor’s forestry department hopes to plant 1,000 trees this spring; efforts that will begin in earnest on Monday morning.
“The tree nursery on Monday is going to be really bustling with lots of activity,” says Paul Giroux, the city’s forester.
They will be harvesting approximately 350 trees, tying them in burlap and wire mesh, to be shipped across the city for planting at various parks and new housing developments.
“We’re also gonna have a load of trees coming in from one of our partner nurseries so it’s gonna be really busy,” Giroux says. “Getting the nursery ready. Opening it up. Digging the trees out, getting them ready. And probably by the end of next week, we’ll have the tree planting program in full swing.”
Windsor-Essex has one of the smallest urban tree canopies in all of Ontario.
But City Council is investing approximately $2 million every year to fix it.
In pre-pandemic times, the city would take advantage of community tree planting events, which cannot happen this spring.
“We’ll do the heavy lifting,” says Giroux, although they are encouraging residents to plant as many trees as possible on private property to help boost the tree cover and to improve our local environment.
“They capture storm water, they provide habitat to our animals and sequester carbon,” he says.
