Two Canmore parks received a green boost last week with $30,000 worth of trees being planted in them.
Centennial Park and Rotary Friendship Park each saw added vegetation thanks to a $15,000 grant from the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation that was matched by the municipality.
Town of Canmore parks supervisor Lisa Guest said 41 trees put into Centennial Park will help protect the wooded space.
“We recognize that trees are valuable and this is a really special park in Canmore,” Guest said. “If we were to lose all those trees in a windstorm it would not look so pretty, so what we have done is go in and do some understory planting and created some mix in diversity in there and that was our focus.”
Centennial is the park that all special events use during summer, including the Highland Games, Folk Music Festival and Canada Day. Those stakeholders were included in the planning of where to put the additional trees.
Guest said it was important to consider how events use the space and look at the big picture or the long-term use of the park.
It was also a great opportunity to provide an educational component, with 70 Grade 4 and 5 students from Lawrence Grassi Middle School and Our Lady of the Snows on hand to put the trees in the ground.
It was an important component assessed by the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation, according to regional manager Mandip Kharod.
“With every Green Streets application we ask about the educational component or if there is an opportunity for the community to get involved, so Canmore had a great opportunity that way,” she said.
Kharod said the grant funds, of which Canmore is one of 25 communities, supports innovative ways to manage green spaces in urban areas. She said having a management plan in place for the long-term care of the trees was important.
“Survivability is critical for us, so it is not so much that we want to give away money and then have folks do a project, but we want to see longevity; we want to see that project continue for as long as we possibly can,” Kharod said. “Canmore is so mindful of the natural landscape that they are fortunate to have around them – we think they are great partners.”
Planting trees is a critical part of the Town’s urban forest management plan, but one that has only just been launched with this recent project, said Guest.
She said the municipality has focused on hazardous tree removal as part of its overall plan, but tree planting is expensive and the $15,000 matching grant is a good way to launch into that part of the plan.
