More than 80 volunteers spent the morning digging through the dirt in Edworthy Park planting native trees and shrubs.

It was part of TD Tree Day, an annual event that has been happening since 2010 which has resulted in more that 550,000 trees being planted to date across Canada.

“It’s 11,000 trees and shrubs in Calgary alone,” explained Robert Ghazal, prairie region senior vice-president with TD Canada Trust. “I work with an incredible bunch of people, who are motivated on so many different causes and so many different initiatives.”

In partnership with the City of Calgary, these new trees and shrubs will replace those that had to be removed or were felled by wildlife.

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“What we heard earlier from the City of Calgary is there’s a lot of non-native species that have been brought in,” Ghazal said. “So as they remove them we replace them with native species which enables the environment to grow in a healthy and sufficient manner.”

Volunteers, working with shovels, fertilizer, flags, and even a few worms, made quick work of the 300 trees, getting them all transplanted within just a few hours.

Oksana Smilska was one of the volunteers. She tells Global News the cause is worth getting dirty for.

“It does require a little bit of effort, but I like to work out,” laughed Smilska. “I planted already four trees, and I’m planning to plant a few more.”

According to the city, so far in 2025 3,000 trees have been planted across the city. More TD Tree Day events are planned across Alberta in the coming days, anyone interested can apply on the TD Tree Day website.

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