We will miss Carl Mansfield, who is retiring after serving as Maple Leaves Forever’s arboreal consultant for the past 5 and half years. Carl has provided the organization with his immeasurable expertise in his treecare and planting notes, and has kept our relationships with partner nurseries strong and healthy. Carl’s careful attention to detail and gentle manner has been a great asset to our team.

Carl brought with him thirty-plus years of comprehensive experience dedicated to the production of bare root seedlings and nursery stock at provincial nurseries in Ontario. He spent most of his career with the Midhurst Forest Tree Nursery, later moving to the St. Williams Forest Tree Nursery. He served as Operations Manager at both nurseries.

 In 1998, Carl was hired by Somerville Nurseries Inc. to lead the development of its new Bare Root Seedling Division in Everett. It was during this time that he was introduced to Ken Jewett and Maple Leaves Forever and began providing native Canadian maples for our program when it was formalized in 2000. A strong friendship developed leading Carl to officially join the Maple Leaves Forever team when he retired from Somerville in 2014.

We sincerely thank Carl for his dedicated service to Maple Leaves Forever! His will be difficult shoes to fill!

From hohtribute.ca/sponsors-2/maple-leaves-forever-partnership

“Maple Leaves Forever is one of the founding sponsors of the Highway of Heroes Tree Campaign. With one of the first ever gifts at $25,000, Maple Leaves Forever helped to launch our campaign back in 2015/2016. A second gift of $10,000 in April of 2017 was highlighted at a community planting event that took place at Downsview Park, Toronto. At this event, Maple Leaves Forever founder, Ken Jewett, presented awards of appreciation to Highway of Heroes Tree Campaign founders, Mark Cullen, Tony DiGiovanni and Michael de Pencier. Without these generous donations and this partnership, Highway of Heroes Tree Campaign wouldn’t be where we are today.

To ensure the tree tribute flourishes, our experts are choosing the right mix of native species for each specific site and a significant number of these are maples.  The various species of maples we’ve planted include Sugar Maples, Silver Maples, Red Maples, and Freeman Maples. Nearly 7,000 (or almost 30%) of the 24,000 trees we planted directly along the highway in 2019 were of various species of Maple.

Maple Leaves Forever have pledged a third gift of $10,000 to support the Highway of Heroes Tree Campaign and this gift will be highlighted at a special event in Trenton, later in the fall of 2020.

For more information on Maple Leaves Forever check out www.mapleleavesforever.ca.”

HOW CAN YOU HELP? TELL A FRIEND!
If you recently received our Thank You Rebate, or you find our tree care information helpful – please share this email with your contacts!

SHARE YOUR MAPLE PHOTOS – We love seeing photos and stories about your maple plantings – please send them along to info@mapleleavesforever.ca.

Our THANK YOU REBATE gives you 25% towards the cost of approved native maples.

Applications for Spring Planting are now CLOSED.

Fall Applications will open
  Wednesday, August 15, with a deadline of
 Friday, November 6th.

Click here for Rebate Details

PEST ALERT
We found Lymantria dispar dispar (also known as Gypsy Moth) caterpillars (larvae) on several young sugar maples when we inspected a recent tree planting site last week. They can do a lot of damage in a very short time, so we encourage you to check your trees. Forestry professionals are expecting an increased presence of these pests in parts of southern Ontario in 2020.

Read more about these pests and what to do about them >

Summer Maple Care & Planting Calendar

July – August

• water as needed, keep trees well-watered during times of heat & drought, especially newly planted trees. Water weekly, supplement when no natural rainfall occurs.
• add or restore mulch as needed & clear surrounding weeds
• the recommended time for pruning young maples is mid-July through early August
• fertilize established trees as recommended but not newly planted trees
• seek assistance if trees appear to be stressed
• monitor regularly for presence of insects or other pests

late August

• if you are considering planting trees in the fall, visit our Rebate page.  You may be eligible for a Thank You Rebate for planting native maples on your rural property

early September

• water trees slowly and deeply to help trees store nutrients & prepare for winter
• inspect tree form, prune only lightly, as needed

Sign up to receive this helpful Newsletter via email, right to your inbox 3-4 times a year.

Spring is planting season!

A message from our Executive Director, Deb Pella Keen

First and foremost, I hope you and your families are safe and well. The last few weeks have been unprecedented for all of us as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt closer to home – in the communities in which we live, work and serve.

We recognize our spring newsletter will not be a top read for many of you.  However, we thought it might be helpful to those who may be trying to complete their tree planting plans this spring.Our staff at Maple Leaves Forever are continuing to work from home, so if you have any questions please contact info@mapleleavesforever.ca.

All the best and stay safe,
Deb

Nurseries and COVID-19

Maple Leaves Forever is still accepting Rebate Applications at this time. Many retail nurseries are closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you call or emailyour local nursery, you may be able to arrange for the purchase and pick up or delivery of your trees. Given the exceptional circumstances, if you are unable or choose not to acquire your trees, Maple Leaves Forever will hold applications until Fall 2020 or Spring 2021.
We appreciate your continued interest in planting native maple trees.
Check out our Partner Nurseries on the MLF website

Our THANK YOU REBATE gives you 25% towards the cost of qualifying native maples.

Spring Planting Rebate Applications Due

TELL A FRIEND!

If you recently received our Thank You Rebate, or you find our information helpful – please share this post with your contacts! We’d also love to see photos and stories about your maple plantings – send them along to info@mapleleavesforever.ca and let us know if we can share!

How to plant your native maples

It’s planting season! For detailed instructions and tips for planting native maple trees, please check out the comprehensive PLANTING GUIDE  in the CARE AND PLANTING INFO section of our website.

In-Person Envirothon Events Cancelled for April

Maple Leaves Forever is a proud sponsor of the Ontario Envirothon. Forests Ontario recently announced: “In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, all in-person Envirothon events that had been scheduled for April have been cancelled. However, the Online Presentation Challenge has been extended to April 30th. With the wonders of technology, it’s never been easier to work together online with your team to compile a presentation video from the comfort of your own homes.”
Find out More at ForestsOntario.ca

New MLF Envirothon Award

On February 14, 2020, Executive Director, Deb Pella Keen presented the “Maple Leaves Forever Envirothon Award” to Terry Schwan, a Registered Professional Forester and an outstanding contributor as a forestry specialist and Ontario Envirothon supporter.

Note: The Ontario Envirothon is a team-based competition for high school students who love the outdoors. It is an incubator for tomorrow’s environmental leaders, designed to prepare students for future green careers.

Landscape Ontario Congress & Forests Ontario Conference

Maple Leaves Forever was proud to once again attend the LO Congress in January 2020 and the Annual Forests Ontario Conference in February.

Maple Leaves Forever participated in Forests Ontario’s annual conference held on February 14th at the Nottawasaga Inn and Convention Centre in Alliston, Ontario. 

More than two hundred and fifty forestry professionals, woodlot owners and educators and college students from across Ontario took in the day-long event.

Our Executive Director Deb Pella Keen and Arboreal Consultant Carl Mansfield provide information on the Maple Leaves Forever program and a Rebate that is available to rural landowners who plant native maple trees on their rural properties. It was an educational and productive event.

Carl Mansfield, MLF’s Arboreal Consultant, spent a morning recently with Woodlot Manager Mike Fisher at the MLF farm.

Carl writes: We checked out the Comfort Maple saplings that we planted in May, 2018 and later toured the property with Mike to see if other trees might need our attention.

Mike has been watering the maple saplings trees regularly (it has been hot and dry out there), filling the tree-watering-bags with 40-45 L of water about every 4-5 days for the past several weeks. It takes 4-6 hours for the water to soak into the tree’s root zone.

We did some light pruning on several of the sugar maple saplings, reestablishing a single, dominant leader on a few trees by selecting  the strongest central branch to be the leader and shortening or completely removing the remaining competing co-dominant shoots.

We removed a few branches with irregular growth and a few that were rubbing against other branches. Any new branches that were growing on the lower third of the trunk were also removed.

We limited pruning to what was essential for now and will revisit these trees after leaf fall in October. The trees are doing fine under Mike’s care.

Mike had a few questions about a group of larger sugar maple trees that had been planted on the edge of the woodlot, a few years after Ken purchased the property.

While inspecting these trees, we found random clusters of Gypsy Moth caterpillars hidden by the tall grass at the base of many of these trees. We eliminated these and visually inspected the lower crowns  for signs of more caterpillars. We found that only a few had managed to climb the trunk and reach the lowest branches. These were also removed. Mike will monitor these trees for the next 2-3 weeks to eliminate this pest.

ADDED NOTE: There are several environmentally friendly products available to homeowners that effectively interrupt the feeding cycle of the gypsy moth larvaes. Most involve preventing the larvae from climbing up the tree trunk to feed on the leaves. Sticky trap insect barriers are available from many retail suppliers.

MLF rarely recommends commercial products but in this instance, the Tree Banding Kit from Lee Valley Tools is more durable, waterproof and long lasting, outperforming similar products. The Banding material in second photo is not waterproof and falls apart after a few rains (personal experience from using several products).

Closer to the residence, we pruned a young bronze beech tree (150-175 cm) that Ken and Edie brought to the farm as a 30-45 cm seedling, when they returned from a trip to Newfoundland.

It had lost its leader to winter desiccation and had a lot of vigorous lateral growth. We clipped the ends of many of these branches to control their further growth and reserved two of the dominant upper branches to be trained in an upwards position to become a new leader for the tree. The final selection of a leader will be made when growth resumes next spring. The tree now has a nice form and is growing well.

The “rust resistant white elm” seedling that was donated to MLF by our friends at the Guelph Arboretum needed a “haircut” too . We planted it as a 40-45 cm grafted specimen in spring 2015. Like the other trees, it has been well cared for by Mike. It is now 3-4 metres in height with a current year’s growth of more than one meter for 2019. We pruned it to maintain its form, removed a few branches close to the ground and shortened several competing terminal branches. Really looks great now.

A walk along the woodlot edge and around the six acre pond confirmed that Ken’s beaver concerns have diminished with no sightings or evidence of recent beaver activity. What we had mistaken for a beaver causing ripples on the pond turned out to be two painted turtles basking in the sun while enjoying a mid-day swim.

Time well spent.

Carl