WELLINGTON COUNTY – The County of Wellington’s municipal tree nursery program was back in full swing post-COVID last year and has almost reached pre-pandemic distribution and production.
A report as part of the county’s planning committee said from Sept. 1, 2022 to Aug. 31, 2023 a total of 166,050 trees were distributed throughout Wellington County with 157,840 of those being seedlings and 8,111 potted trees across 990 orders.
The Green Legacy program’s goals are to increase the forest cover in Wellington County and to foster an understanding of the importance of trees and forests in the community.
The report said at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, the program had to suspend all on-site volunteer and school programming opportunities at the two nurseries.
“This year we were able to fully resume the school programming and community planting events and our overall tree production and distribution is almost back to the pre-pandemic numbers,” the report said.
With these kinds of events and school partnerships back fully, the program had 108,012 trees grown and/or planted by students, almost 7,000 distributed at special events and more than 6,000 were planted through community planting events.
