FILL UP, WITH TREES
Torrie Groening has found her five ginkgo trees, bought at a Vancouver park board sale, are a great conversation starter and add to the city’s green canopy.
The five ginkgo trees Torrie Groening planted after last year’s Vancouver park board tree sale have become a conversation starter in her little corner of Strathcona.
“What’s nice about it is I’ve met different neighbours, and people are really positive about it. As soon as they see you planting, we’re getting all kinds of positive comments,” she said.
She’s planning on buying more greenery to fill her yard during this year’s sale, which marks the first ever Vancouver Tree Week, April 2-10. Twentytwo varieties, including everything from fig to magnolia to maple and oak, are on sale for $10 — a big discount from the usual retail price of about $75 each.
“Anyone I’ve talked to about this program is so keen. I think it’s a runaway success,” Groening said.
The park board is hoping to get thousands of trees planted on private property in the weeks after the tree sale in an effort to replace some of the greenery that has been lost to development. Since 1995, the tree canopy over Vancouver has dropped from covering 22 per cent of the city to just 18 per cent.
“For what’s supposed to be a very green city, that’s a concerning stat for me,” said park board chair Sarah Kirby-Yung.
“I think we’ve been doing a great job on street trees and in parks throughout the city. Where we see a lot of decline is on private property.”
Online tree sales have been underway for a week and close to 3,000 trees have sold so far. Only a few are still available on the website, but a limited quantity of trees will be available to buy during in-person sales on Saturday at Hillcrest Centre and on April 10 at the Trout Lake Community Centre.
To help people choose the perfect tree, the park board has created a “Treelationships” online quiz that asks questions about everything from gardening skills to preferred size.
“It’s so much fun,” said Kirby-Yung, who took the quiz and learned she should go for “all natural beauties” — flowering trees like lilac and chokecherry.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with big, solid, evergreens. We need those too,” she said.
Apart from the tree sale, some of the other events during Tree Week include walking tours of Stanley Park and an edible tree walk in Hastings Park.
For more information on Tree Week and the tree sale, visit the City of Vancouver website.