Adopt-a-Tree

Join the Friends of Trinity Bellwoods Park (FoTBP) volunteer Adopt-A-Tree program and help keep the park's newly planted trees alive through their precarious first four years when their root systems are still shallow.

It's easy – sign up for a specific young tree and from spring to fall make sure it gets five gallons of water each week when there's been no or insufficient rainfall for its first four years. It's a terrific thing to do with kids or while walking the dog.  There are taps in the park and FoTBP provides bundle buggies and plastic jugs to carry the water to your tree.

Interested? Contact Michaelle, the AAT Coordinator using the FoTBP contact form.

Alternatively, come out during the spring or fall "park days" which are announced on the website and in FoTBP's eNewsletter and sign up.

NEW ADOPTERS  FOR 2013 SEASON

Adopters generally sign up for four years but some move out of the neighborhood or their situation changes.  There are also new trees planted on an ongoing basis.  At the moment there are 25 young trees in need of adopters. UPDATE:  19 TREES NEED ADOPTERS

See the google map below for more specific locations -- red volcano icons are the orphans.

START YOUR OWN ADOPT A TREE PROGRAM

And if you're not in our neighborhood, why not start a program where you are?  We're thrilled to hear that over the past couple of years this good idea is growing and Friends of McCormick Park, Friends of Withrow Park  , Friends of Alexandra Park, Woodbine Park and Friends of Roxton Road Parks have all started Adopt A Tree Programs.  Either just start watering those trees or get together with some of your neighbors, contact your local Councillor and Parks Supervisor and you're on your way.  If you'd like more pointers or encouragement don't hesitate to contact Michaelle -- use the FoTBP contact form.

BACKGROUND

The Trinity Bellwoods Park's canopy of shady trees is a big part of its appeal and majesty. The FoTBP's Adopt-A-Tree program was established in 2006 by Friend of the park Jenna Hofbauer when she and other park neighbors realised city staff was often stretched too thin to maintain suffient watering in the young trees' first years.  It takes three to five years for the saplings to develop deep enough root systems to survive a lack of rainfall.  Since so many of us are in the park regularly it was an easy decision to "adopt" a tree and water it regularly in order to help ensure the survival of succession trees and the continued renewal of the magnificent tree canopy.

 What's Involved:

• Five gallons (23L) of water a week from May to October,
• weeding around the tree's base to avoid competition for the water,
• and a spring and/or fall mulching which helps slow water evaporation, prevents the mowers from damaging the bark and keeps the weeds down.
  
  

The city's Parks Department has opened several taps around the park for the AAT program where we keep water containers and bundle buggies. 

1. On the east side of the park there is an open tap on the ice house just south of the ice-rink. 
2. Dundas just east of Crawford by the path there's a tap in the ground.
3. In the bowl by the Parks building - also much appreciated by the dogs.
4. During the summer from July to the end of August there is also a water outlet and water containers on the west side of the park in the grounds of the vibrant Art in The Park program.
5. In the community greenhouse in the south end of the park.

The Friends of Trinity Bellwoods Park organise, in cooperation with City Parks, a mulching day in the spring or fall.

 A map of the trees currently in the Tri-Bell AAT program can be found below:

View Trinity Bellwoods Park - Adopt A Tree Program Map in a larger map