Spring Tree Planting along Medway Creek 

This spring, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA) led three days of tree planting along the Medway Creek as a part of the Freshwater Enhancement of the Medway Watershed project, funded by the Canada Water Agency.

These tree plantings are part of a 3-year project featuring live staking and tree planting along the creek in areas with minimal vegetation that are experiencing high erosion. Each day of planting involves local students, community members, and organizations getting their hands in the mud and planting the trees themselves. Tree planting has many benefits to the local ecosystem, including providing habitat for native species, stabilizing the bank and reducing risk of erosion, cooling the water (through shading), and providing a buffer for surface runoff.

Middlesex Centre Councillor Jean Coles and Friends of Medway Creek members Sandy Levin and Trevor Ortbach joined us to help plant! Coles are Levin are also UTRCA Board Members.

Completing these tree plantings relies heavily on help from local elementary and high school students. This year, students from Saunders and Beal Secondary Schools and Mother Teresa Catholic Secondary School helped in the plantings. We also had help from grade 7/8 GREEN Leaders classes from Ashley Oaks and Byron Northview Public Schools and St. Anne Catholic School. These classes chose water quality, fish species at risk, phosphorus in the Great Lakes, and microplastics as their environmental focus issue and planted these trees as part of their final “action project”.  

With the help of more than 200 students from these schools, over 750 native trees and shrubs were planted on the Medway Creek, including species such as eastern white pine, white cedar, red maple, serviceberry, and willows.  

Do you live in the Medway and want to plant trees on your property? Contact April Scholz, Community Partnership Specialist.