Whether you’re planning a birthday, wedding or graduation celebration, once you decide to add trees to the party you will need to find a place to plant trees and some small trees to plant.

Unless you own a sizable piece of land where you can plant trees, contact the parks department for your city, town, regional district, or county and ask if they have sites where native trees need to be planted. If the parks department can’t help, try your provincial or state parks department. Another possibility is to work with a local farm or community garden to plant fruit and nut trees. Once you have a site, discuss with the owner what types, sizes, and numbers of trees to plant.

If you decide to plant native trees, you will need to find a native plant nursery in your area. For BC, see our resources page. Fruit and nut trees are more readily available at garden centres and plant nurseries. Ask the staff which fruit and nut trees grow best in your area. Be sure to ask advice on which trees to plant near one another. For example, some fruits such as apples and pears have to be planted near other similar trees so that cross-pollination is possible. Otherwise, there won’t be any fruit!

Once you have your site and a source of trees, plan the rest of your party: food, drink, music etc. If your birthday or wedding is in the wrong season for tree planting, you will need to have a two-part celebration. First, you have your regular party and ask for donations for buying trees instead of gifts. Then, when the season is right for tree planting (usually fall in BC), you have an outdoor party to get the trees in the ground.

Your invitations will need to include the request for donations towards buying trees, as well as the usual details of date, time and place. Including the expected cost of a tree will help people decide how much to give. For the planting portion of the invitation include details of when and where the planting party will be held. Encourage your guests to dress for the weather and for digging in the dirt. You may need them to bring shovels, work gloves, water cans etc, unless you or the site owner can provide enough of those tools.

On the day of the planting party have a parks staff person or a farmer available to show people the correct way to plant the trees. so that they will thrive. Then dig in and plant those trees!