Trees for Life is thrilled to announce a new partnership with the 407 ETR that will result in 20,000 trees planted in the fall of 2024. 

In September of 2022, the 407 ETR Highway Corridor Biodiversity Project was launched.  Its objective is to revolutionize the 407’s vegetation management approach and to develop a healthy, ecologically sustainable, and biodiverse landscape running through the heart of the Greater Toronto Area. The project seeks to eradicate invasive plant species and increase the number of native plants (including trees), growing within and adjacent to the 407’s 108 km corridor.

Here at Trees For Life our #1 goal is to plant trees where Canadians live, work and play.”

We believe that the trees that benefit humans most are planted among us… or, maybe we live among the trees? In either case, you get the point.

Your donation works in mysterious ways.  In this newsletter you’ll read about a valued member of the Trees for Life team who grows trees for a living, is vice-chair of our charity and wanted to give back in a seriously big way.

When Rebecca read TFL Executive Director Mike Hurley’s story about his cancer journey, she joined The Acorns – the crew running and raising funds for TFL this October in the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon and 5K. 

Not only is Rebecca a long-time runner, but she is also the daughter of Tony DiGiovanni, (co-founder of TFL), and a Staff Physician, General Internal Medicine, at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Rebecca sees her fair share of health challenges in her role, but Mike’s story deeply touched her.

Oh, what a web we weave! 

In the spring of 2024, Jeff Olsen, owner of Brookdale Treeland Nurseries (BTN), and TFL board member, generously donated 5000 trees and shrubs to Trees for Life. All he asked was that suitable homes be found for them. It turns out this incredible gift valued at nearly $100K, spun a web connecting people, communities, and organizations, that continues today.

Trees for Life engaged its networks, and word of these free trees got out, even capturing the ears of Council members and the Mayor of the Town of Georgina. With grand tree-planting goals for their town already in place, they were particularly excited to engage the community and grow their urban tree canopy without increasing their budget with these trees.

Canada’s most decorated citizen and active serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces, Major-General (Retired) Richard Rohmer, the Honourary Lieutenant-General of the Canadian Armed Forces graciously granted Trees for Life a couple of hours of his time recently. We chatted about his service with the RCAF, and the General as he likes to be called, shared stories of his days flying P-51 Mustangs in World War II and his thoughts on planting living tributes to honour heroes. In the centennial year of the Royal Canadian Air Force, it’s notable that the General also celebrated his centennial in January this year.

is Canada Day, or, as you read this, very near the 157th anniversary of the birth of our country. I am just wondering, “Are you looking for something to celebrate?”

I have an idea. Let’s celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Together, with members of the storied RCAF we will stop for a moment, maybe longer, and think about their history and our own, which, if you are Canadian, is one and the same.“Never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few,” said Winston Churchill.

Just ahead of Earth Day, on a chilly Saturday nearly 100 volunteers braved the elements to plant a commemorative grove of 400 trees at the Sherway Trail, adjacent to The Trillium Health Queensway Health Centre, in Etobicoke, ON. The planting was completed in partnership with the Toronto Region and Conservation Authority, to support their restoration efforts of the forest and habitat near Etobicoke Creek.

The arrival of December always brings about a certain feeling that is unique to this time of year. This is a time of renewal as we get ready to turn our calendar over to a new year and the inevitable sense of optimism that comes with it: “new year, new me”.

It’s also a time when we look back retrospectively at the year that has passed, what has changed, and what was accomplished.

For the Trees for Life family, 2023 celebrates another chapter of our story.

For our readers who are well-versed in tree planting, you’ll know that there are only two planting seasons in Canada: spring and fall. Planting in the summer runs the risk of newly planted trees baking in high heat and periods of drought and planting in the winter, well, many of us are frozen!

This past June I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the high Canadian Arctic. Baffin Island from Iqaluit in the south to Pond Inlet in the north. I traveled with some like-minded friends who have been working through the Rideau Hall Foundation. The purpose of the trip was to gain a better understanding of the challenges the people of Nunavut face and the opportunities that they have to help themselves enjoy a more prosperous life. RHF supports the Inuit through a variety of programs, most of which are controlled and operated by the Inuit themselves.

A key reason Trees for Life has been able to plant so many trees because of the support from Landscape Ontario’s leadership and membership.

Is there any better way to celebrate National Forest Week (September 18th-24th) and National Tree Day (September 20th), than by planting your favourite, native, tree species?

Not the first time you’ve heard this from me, but if you need a good reason, (better than the benefits that trees deliver), consider the forest fire crises we are enduring nationwide.

The moment the plane doors opened, what I was expecting to be a breath of fresh, prairie air, didn’t happen. Instead, I was hit with a wall of hazy smoke. Sadly, this is something that is all too familiar right across the country including the Greater Toronto Area, and something I had never experienced before.