Vancouver tree sale hopes to boost forest canopy

The Vancouver Park Board has 1,000 trees on sale for $10 each and is asking residents to find a home from them.

"We need residents to also plant trees on their property in order to increase the urban tree canopy," said Vancouver Park Board Chair John Coupar in a release.

Canopy cover is how much ground is covered by trees leaves when seen from the air.

West Point Grey has the most coverage in the city at 28.9 per cent, while Strathcona has the least at 5.9 cent.

Meanwhile the majority of Vancouver's tree cover — more than 60 per cent — is on private property and in the past two decades close to 24,000 trees have been removed from those areas.

That's resulted in canopy cover dropping from more than 22 per cent in 1995 to 18 per cent in 2013. 

The park board says this means there is more dust, smog, soot and carbon dioxide in Vancouver's air, in addition to more rain water running off and a reduction in habitat for wildlife.

To counteract the loss, tree sales like this one are becoming common place. 

The sale is part of the park board's ambitious tree-planting target of 11,000 new trees this year alone in support of the City of Vancouver's Urban Forest Strategy, which was endorsed by the park board and city council in April 2014.

It wants to dramatically add to the 140,000 trees that line city streets and the 340,000 in parks. Most of the room for growth is on private property.

• Cheap trees for sale
• Help grow the urban canopy

The latest trees to be made available are between five and six feet tall and in seven to 10 gallon pots.

Vancouver residents can get them at the park board head office during the second annual Doors Open Vancouver on Saturday, Oct. 3 between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. PT.

The varieties being sold include:

• Fruit: Italian prune plums, apple and cherry
• Flowering: Snowcone Japanese Snowbell and Magnolia 'Randy'
• Shade: Katsura and Autumn Gold Ginkgo
• Conifers: dwarf mountain pine 'mops' and Frohburg Weeping Norway spruce

The trees are valued up to $100 and there is a limit of five trees per person.