In 2025, Maine Audubon launched an exciting new project to develop four community tree and native plant nurseries around the state. These nurseries will produce trees that city arborists will then use to restore the forest canopy in urban Portland, Bangor, and Lewiston/Auburn, and all kinds of plants which will be used in habitat restoration projects Downeast. This allows municipalities and restoration professionals to plan and purchase more intentionally and economically, and for Maine Audubon to help them source and produce native species which can be hard to find in the sizes and quantities they most need.
Similar to commercial plant nurseries, tree nurseries create space and infrastructure for small tree and plant seedlings to be grown along until they reach the size and self-sufficiency to be planted out in the communities they are intended to serve. These conservation horticulture nurseries will be overseen by City Parks and Public Works staff, managed by Maine Audubon, and staffed via work study programs for teens from marginalized communities with help from numerous intercultural partners. The project will also benefit from overarching oversight from Forestry Professor and Penobscot citizen John Daigle at the University of Maine, who will help ensure connections to forestry research and careers, as well as Wabanaki conservation values.
This project is made possible by a Project Canopy grant from the Maine Forest Service, who we are also excited to partner with on this important project.
Maine Audubon and Portland Parks have worked together on planting projects throughout the city for more than a decade. As a result, it was easy for us to identify the significant number of plants we use each year, and Portland City Arborist Mark Reiland anticipates that the city will continue to plant more than 100 large caliper street trees annually for many years to come. We had already experienced challenges in sourcing the species and sizes we needed for habitat and canopy restoration. Together, we approached our partners at Portland Arts & Technology High School (PATHS) to install a tree nursery for the horticulture and new outdoor leadership & education programs there. During the summer of 2025, Maine Audubon worked with our friends at Maine Association for New Americans (MANA) to enable paid opportunity for teens.
We work with Bangor schools, public works, and many community groups to engage people in habitat restoration projects, so it was a natural fit to work with Public Works Director Aaron Huotari and City Arborist Ben Arruda on the development of a community tree nursery. The city has already identified and improved access at a new site on Finson Road, where we will also be installing large gravel beds in which to grow the large caliper trees that Arruda needs. Our Fields Pond staff are working with United Technologies Center, a career and technical high school in the Bangor region, to add a tree nursery component to their vocational programs, and Maine Audubon hopes to develop summer teen stewardship programming with local community organizations as well.
We have helped engage youth and community leaders in habitat restoration throughout Lewiston for years, so when we asked Lewiston city arborist Steve Murch how Maine Audubon could support tree planting efforts, Steve was quick to suggest supporting a local tree nursery. The Lewiston Auburn Community Forestry Board, and particularly the municipal arborists for both cities, has established a productive field nursery at a site in Auburn. Together, we hope to improve the infrastructure of that site both for growing and for hosting groups looking to study the trees and how we grow them. Steve and his counterpart in Auburn, Noel Skelton, will use trees grown at the nursery for street and park tree planting in parks, schoolyards, and along streets.
Maine Audubon collaborates with Maine Community Integration, a local organization which empowers New Mainer girls and their families through a variety of social education and systems advocacy programs, on staffing and other support for programs engaging teens in conservation horticulture, civic engagement, and climate justice. These youth will play a direct and integral role in restoring canopy and the many benefits trees provide in their neighborhoods and throughout Lewiston-Auburn.
Maine Audubon has been concentrating on serving Washington County and the Downeast region of Maine better, and with the start of the 2024 school year, we marked the start of an exciting new partnership to further this goal. We teamed with our friends at Project SHARE (Salmon Habitat and River Enhancement) and Washington Academy, an independent high school in East Machias, to restore a conservation horticulture nursery which will engage students and the surrounding communities in producing native plants for nearby habitat restoration projects.
In January 2025, we hired a Community Tree Steward for Washington Academy to work with students and oversee growing the operation. We started our first batch of plants in the spring of 2025, and Project SHARE led the planting out of these plants—including dozens of species of perennials, shrubs, and trees—at several river project sites throughout the summer and fall.