In the smoking heat of summer, the city needs all the shade it can get. Near the exit of a busy supermarket in east-central Toronto stands a sturdy, teenaged Sugar Maple with a broad canopy. It’s the eco-product of some urban guerrilla gardening by local resident Debi Rudolph.

She and her husband were taking advantage of a city tree program, but when their tree arrived and was planted by a city crew, it was not the Silk tree the city had promised. So Debi found a perfect spot for the baby Sugar Maple nearby, replacing a deceased tree on the boulevard at a busy Sobey’s grocery store. The Maple has thrived, providing an ever-growing shade circle at the intersection of a city sidewalk and the Sobey’s exit.

“Rather than wait for the city to do something, I simply moved it over to the Sobey’s boulevard, which obviously needed a tree,” Debi recalls. “Then I called the city and asked, ‘When are you bringing my Silk tree?’ A week later they showed up with the right species. They never asked about the Sugar Maple, and nobody at Sobey’s ever mentioned anything about the sudden appearance of a baby tree on their property either. So it’s all good!”

Over the next few years, Debi lavished TLC on her guerrilla tree. “I watered, mulched, and pruned that baby for the next four years, just to make sure it survived.”

Debi’s maple

Debi admits to feeling some guilt about planting a ‘stolen’ tree on a grocery store’s property, but the tree is thriving. Native to eastern Canada, sugar maples can live 200 years or more and when mature tower more than 100 feet tall, with a wide canopy. In fall, they put on a spectacular show of multi-coloured orange, red and yellow hues. In spring, they can be tapped for Canada’s sweetest crop: maple syrup. Urban trees like Debi’s help citizens beat the heat and a green canopy can improve mental health in the concrete jungle.

Debi, a landscape design specialist, and a fellow community gardener at Thorncliffe Park, sometimes walks down into the Don Valley nearby to harvest crabapples for jelly in fall. More guerrilla gardening is in store, she says:

“I do have plans to take cuttings from that crabapple tree in the valley and plant babies up and down the valley. Whatever variety that tree is, it’s really hardy and fairly disease resistant, so l want to make sure there are more of them around.”

Debi Rudolph

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