The White Spruce Forest is set to double in size in two years starting this summer, says a local forester – but not without a lot of digging first.
Retired foresters Peter Murphy and Daryl D’Amico of the Grey Nuns White Spruce Park Working Group gave the Gazette an overview this week of a massive tree planting operation they plan to start in a few weeks.
The working group, which is responsible for adding trees and trails to what is St. Albert’s oldest forest, received a $12,200 Environmental Initiatives Grant last fall to add some 10,000 trees to the forest.
The trees in this forest are very old, and thick brush is preventing younger trees from growing as replacements, D’Amico said.
“Just about every windstorm, we lose a tree.”
The group has previously cleared a number of test plots in the forest to see if it could add younger trees to the mix and preserve the forest. Now, it’s planning a major expansion of the forest in a grass field just to its south.
That area was once all trees, but was cleared for hay back in the 1960s, Murphy explained. The group wants to replant it so that it connects with an island of white spruce closer to the Sturgeon.
D’Amico said the thick grass in this field would outcompete any seedling put into it, so to get rid of it, they’ll use a piece of heavy equipment called a Terra-mounder. Commonly used in forestry, this wheel-like device will scrape up and flip patches of sod like a sandwich, creating about 1,600 mounds into which they can plant trees. The device should be on site sometime between May 2 and 4.
The group plans to plant about 10,000 seedlings in this region, D’Amico said – half this June, and half in a nearby field that they’ll scrape up next year.
“By five years, (those trees) should be about waist high.”
In all, they’ll be adding about 10 hectares of trees to the forest, Murphy said – enough to double it in size.
The group has collected enough seeds from the forest to grow about 53,000 trees, and hopes to plant them all in the next 10 years, D’Amico said.
Questions on the project should go to Erin Pickard at 780-418-6005.
City residents will get a chance to give the planet a hug this weekend as part of Earth Day.
Earth Day was April 22, and Edmonton’s Earth’s General Store has once again organized a free festival to commemorate it.
The Edmonton Earth Day Festival is this Sunday at the 104 Street pocket park behind the old Sobeys outlet and next to the Evoolution olive oil store, said co-organizer Michele McDougall. The free event features a number of speakers from local environmental groups, garbage-based fashion, and people dressed as cows.
The theme of this year’s Earth Day is “Rooting 4 Trees,” so most of the displays at this year’s event will seek to encourage people to plant trees to reduce their carbon footprint, McDougall said. They would have handed out tree seedlings, but the City of Edmonton couldn’t supply them with any in time.
“Trees are our lifeblood,” she said, as they clean the air, reduce erosion, and create homes for animals.
Albert Lacombe students celebrated Earth Day Thursday with a yard cleanup, said principal Joan Tod.
“Somebody in the neighbourhood must have had a pillow-fight,” she said, as one student team found a whole bunch of pillow-fluff in a bush.
Students also celebrated the fact that they had collectively performed some 2,336 actions to fight climate change over the course of Lent as part of their Bears Fight Climate Change campaign, Tod said. The group had hoped to perform at least a thousand such acts, including reusing clothes, reducing packaging waste, and conserving fuel by riding on bikes instead of in cars.
“I said to the kids, you should care more about (the Earth) than anybody else, because you’re going to live on it longer than your parents or your grandparents, and you have to inspire them and help them make choices that are good for your future.”
The Earth Day festival runs from runs from noon until 3 p.m.
