Fleming College

At Fleming College’s School of Environmental & Natural Resource Sciences (SENRS), we rely on a variety of outdoor environments and non-traditional classroom spaces to achieve our students learning outcomes and to provide them with hands-on training opportunities. To enhance its educational offerings, SENRS established an Arboretum on the Frost campus with a mission to to create a campus-wide living laboratory, showcasing woody and non-woody plants in a variety of landscape settings (natural and aesthetic) for the purposes of education, research, and community engagement. In keeping with that mission, we have planted over 360 trees and shrubs representing 116 native species as well as incorporating over 60 species of native understory plants, including some of Ontario’s species-at-risk like, Butternut, American chestnut, Cucumber tree, White wood aster, Wood poppy and Dense blazing star.

There are several motivations for the establishment of an arboretum that ultimately will benefit the Frost campus and the Kawartha Lakes community. Firstly, as an outdoor classroom, the Arboretum is utilized by many programs at the Frost campus including, Ecosystem Management, Forestry, Fish and Wildlife, Arboriculture, and Urban Forestry. The space provides students hands-on opportunities to build skills such as tree planting and maintenance, pest management, tree identification, seed forecasting & collection, trail maintenance, navigation and geocaching, and natural heritage interpretation.

Secondly, having a greater variety of trees on campus and increasing our overall canopy cover will have a positive impact on the environment and surrounding community. It allows us to maximize the environmental services that urban forests provide, including improved air, soil and water quality, reduction of greenhouse gas concentrations, stormwater runoff abatement, wildlife habitat creation, and increased biodiversity. Finally, the Arboretum provides a new, unique green space for members of the public to visit and utilize, further enhancing their appreciation of nature, while improving their physical and mental well-being.

The Arboretum Development Fund supports the long-term development, maintenance, and expansion of the Arboretum. This project provides the opportunity to recognize a loved one by naming a bench or tree in their honour. See benches and trees program for more details.