It was a full house at Paper Birch Books on March 11th as Dustin Bajer gave a talk entitled 

“Trees in McCauley: The Past and Future of McCauley’s Urban Forest” to neighbourhood folks, keen gardeners, and general lovers of trees.

His presentation covered the current state of McCauley’s tree canopy, and outlined the contribution trees can make to beauty, quality of life, climate resilience, and even property values. 

Dustin shared information on some of the challenges facing older trees, such as Dutch Elm Disease. He also spoke to the crowd about his new project, Cultivate McCauley, which seeks to engage McCauley residents in starting, growing, and planting 1,000 trees to increase biodiversity in the neighbourhood.

Dustin’s enthusiasm for trees was evident as he shared stories of knocking on stranger’s doors to identify the trees in their yards, or scouring boulevards for apricot pits.

Gail Silvius recently moved back to McCauley after living in Delton.