WRN Teens: Planting Trees at SpruceHaven

Saturday November 21, 2020

We are Waterloo Region Nature Teens and today we came out to SpruceHaven farm, a nature reserve outside of St. Agatha. We came here to plant trees at a — well, it’s going to become a wetland but for now it’s just a hole! But now that we’re finished, it’s a hole with over 100 more trees around it so we accomplished something!

The people who own the farm, the Westfall Hill family, are working with Ducks Unlimited to make a new wetland. This huge double hole was dug a few weeks ago with heavy equipment. They were happy to see that since this damp low spot was cleared and deepened, it has already started to collect water.

The Westfall Hills have been planting seeds and collecting small seedlings from other parts of their farm to put here. The trees we planted will help stabilize the banks of the two holes and the pathway between them, and will create more variety of habitats here.

We planted lots of cedars, several kinds of deciduous trees (with plastic guards around them to protect them from deer over the winter), some shrubs and some native wildflowers. Even though the ground is hard clay in spots, the actual planting is simple — you just dig a hole and put the little tree in!

We worked so hard that we got all the trees planted in the new wetland and still had time left. So Sandy Hill walked with us to another low damp spot that hasn’t been dug but where they want to add some new trees and plants. We planted there and then walked back to the barn, stopping for a (distanced) group photo in the meadow.

We did this planting so there can be more trees to return the environment to its natural state.  It’ll be good for all the animals that can now have a place to live like ducks that can nest here. All creatures need habitat — water, food, shelter and air in the right arrangement — to survive.  We’ve made a start at creating new habitat and we’re looking forward to observing what creatures move in!
 
— Report by all the Teens with a few direct quotes from Megan, Nicole, Quinn P. and Eva
 
P.S.  In a wonderful email from Sandy afterwards, we learned that the swale where we planted all those trees is now called Teen Hollow!  Huge thanks to Sandy Hill and Dave Westfall for welcoming us and providing us with great volunteer work opportunities.
 
Marg Paré for WRN Teens