2025 marked the launch of Maine Audubon’s four Community Tree Nurseries in Portland, Auburn, Bangor, and East Machias. Working with professional partners in municipal public works, urban forestry, vocational education, and habitat restoration, these nurseries will produce native species of trees and other plants for city arborists to use in replacing canopy trees in Maine’s three largest population centers, as well as for revegetating sites following major river restoration projects Downeast. It’s been a busy first growing season for the project, and I wanted to provide a quick update on what has been happening at each site:
Lewiston/Auburn: For years, the Lewiston Auburn Community Forestry Board has sought to align the efforts and resources of those two cities around an acre or so of field nursery in the Lake Auburn neighborhood. Thanks to their own grants and with some extra help from Maine Audubon, the nursery has enjoyed newfound attention and upgrades including a new road, drainage, clearing, and, soon, wildlife fencing to keep the many deer in the area from devouring baby trees. Maine Audubon and Maine Community Integration, our longstanding partner on the Sprout Lewiston program for immigrant teen girls, visited the nursery weekly in July to plant 45 new saplings and otherwise steward the site (pictured above). The place has never looked better, and city arborists Noel Skelton (Auburn) and Steve Murch (Lewiston) have helped with tools and to-do lists, as well as instilling a sense of pride and connection for the youth having direct and positive impact within their own communities and the ecosystems amongst them.
East Machias: The statewide Community Tree Nurseries project got started this year with the hiring of Holly O’Neal (pictured below) as a Maine Conservation Corps Community Tree Steward at Washington Academy (WA), an independent high school in East Machais. Holly and the team at WA took on the potting and care of hundreds of trees and other plants we grow for Project SHARE’s salmon habitat restoration work, and just about every student there got at least exposed to nursery operations, ecology education, and conservation careers. This summer, we also welcomed Blue Schade as a “Living Shorelines” intern with the Maine Climate Science Information Exchange. Holly and Blue spent July working with 60 international students in the WA summer program. For August, Holly has collaborated with various local organizations including Mano En Mano in Millbridge and the Passamaquoddy Nation to host more than 30 teens in paid stewardship and workforce development programming, modeled after programming that Maine Audubon has provided multicultural partners in Portland and Lewiston.
Portland: We have established and completed a site plan for a small gravel bed at Portland Arts & Technology High School (PATHS). With support from the leadership and horticulture faculty at PATHS, along with Portland Public Schools and Portland city arborist Mark Reiland, we will be grading the site, installing curbing, filling gravel, and running a water line in the coming weeks. We hope to plant the first batch of tree saplings there with PATHS horticulture students in September.
Bangor: At a city-owned property on Finson Road, Bangor’s city arborist Ben Arruda has designed and led an ambitious effort to have a well drilled, power line run, and wildlife fence installed for what will become a large gravel bed and field nursery. Our partners at United Technologies Center (UTC), a regional career and technical high school in Bangor, are eager to help us plant their first batch of saplings there this fall.
