TreeKeepers want public to help grow city's urban forest

Gardeners look forward to spring and a local group is hoping that selling trees as low as  $10, including some that can be grown on an apartment balcony, will encourage more urban plantings.

As gardening season gets into full swing in Metro Vancouver, lots of green thumbs will be focused on their lawns, their flowers, and their vegetables.

TreeKeepers, a non-profit organization, wants people to consider adding -- you guessed it -- trees to their properties.

"Trees filter the air… they make it cooler on a hot day and cut the wind on a cold day so they can save you money," said TreeKeepers' chief arborist David Tracey. "We feel better around trees."

Helping to grow the urban forest

TreeKeepers is helping the City of Vancouver with their urban forestry strategy.

The goal of the strategy is to plant 150,000 new trees in the city. However since 2010, only 35,000 have been planted.

"We still have a ways to go, but we're being very aggressive trying to find new space, which is always challenging, and that's why we rely on homeowners in particular to ramp up their games by putting more trees in the ground," said Vancouver Park Board manager Howard Normann.

Treekeepers wants to mobilize those homeowners by selling them a variety of trees for their home garden at a significant discount from the nurseries and hardware stores.

Renters can get in on the act too

Treekeepers also has options for people who want to garden on their apartment porches.

According to Tracey, you don't need much more than a sunny spot and some potting soil to grow trees on almost any balcony.

"In that kind of space you could have a mini orchard going on," said Tracey. "The figs will be delicious. And apples, they'll do fine in containers, and we have plum trees as well that'll do quite well."