The Stratford and Area Master Gardeners will be selling hundreds of native trees and shrubs from the parking lot of a local church on Saturday, part of the group’s ongoing effort to improve the city’s dwindling tree canopy.
Elderberry, New Jersey tea and bush honeysuckle are just a few of the species that’ll be available at Avondale United Church between 9 am and 2 pm The trees and shrubs will be priced from $10 to $16.
“What we wanted to do was provide habitat for birds and animals, insects, and so we chose all of our trees to be pollinator friendly,” said Don Farwell, the group’s co-ordinator. “We’ve got a good variety. They’re all good pollinator feeders.”
Saturday’s sale featuring upwards of 700 trees and shrubs will be the first the Stratford and Area Master Gardeners group has ever hosted. The sale is part of the group’s ReLeaf Stratford project, an effort to plant 2022 new trees in the city this year.
Home to a vast amount of farmland, Perth County has the second lowest tree cover of any region in Ontario – about 10 per cent – according to the group’s figures. Stratford’s tree cover, meanwhile, is only 2.6 per cent, well below the threshold recommended to maintain significant biodiversity.
The Stratford and Area Master Gardeners has planted more than 600 trees so far this year. The group is also donating 400 trees to the city, Farwell said, and a plan is in the works to gift a number of others to local community groups later this year.
More information is available on releafstratford.ca.