Time to Grow Trees!

It’s finally spring and it’s time to grow trees!  

The Intervale Conservation Nursery is hopping with activity. In the past 2 ½ weeks, we’ve propagated 17,000 new trees from hardwood cuttings with the help of 25 volunteers. These shrub willows, red osier dogwoods, and many more species of trees and shrubs will eventually be planted along waterways throughout Vermont to stabilize streambanks, filter out pollutants and improve water quality. Many thanks to all of the hardworking volunteers who helped us “start” so many trees, including UVM’s Food Justice Alternate Spring Break group and many City Market member workers!

As soon as the ground thaws, we’ll be harvesting trees from our 8-acre growing field that will then be planted in conservation projects throughout Vermont this May and June. Contact Carolyn Zeller at Carolyn@intervale.org if you’re interested in volunteering to help with our harvest!

This week, Seth Gillim, our Conservation Nursery Assistant Manager, was pleased to accept a Distinguished Partner Award from the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at UVM. We’ve had a great partnership with the Rubenstein School for years, hosting NR206 work study students and interns who get hands-on conservation experience working with the Nursery.  Nikki Kim, who interned with us last summer, put together this video about her project to help design a low cost, low maintenance system to irrigate our tube stock properly.

Finally, we just bought a new truck to help transport trees to planting projects all over the state!

Activity at the Conservation Nursery is one of our favorite signs of spring. Stay tuned for more ways to get involved with planting trees to improve water quality in Vermont!