Looking back at Cohort 2 of the Urban Roots Apprenticeship

May 7, 2019

Arbor Day this year was a bittersweet day for the Baltimore Tree Trust! The end of our second cohort of the Urban Roots Apprenticeship happened to fall on Arbor Day, and while we love any holiday celebrating trees, it was also sad to say goodbye to another group of apprentices. URA ran from March 18 to April 26, and throughout those six weeks, apprentices planted over 700 trees with us in the city. They also went on job shadow experiences and attended workshops with our lovely partner organizations and employers, including Davey Trees, Natural Concerns, Blue Water Baltimore, Design with Nature and Bartlett Trees. At the end, seven apprentices graduated and we are excited to watch as they start their careers in this lucrative field on crews with Davey Trees and Ruppert Landscape, as well as with our own crew at BTT! Several have aspirations to own their own landscape company one day, and we hope their job placements will help them to get there. During a planting with Blue Water Baltimore, one of our apprentices, Darrian Birden, had the opportunity to talk to a local news crew about his time with the Tree Trust and what he enjoyed most about working in the field. Click the link below to hear more!

Groups plant trees in Belair-Edison

You can also click through the below pictures to see the different workshops our apprentices participated in throughout the program.

Learning about urban forestry with Blue Water Baltimore
First pruning workshop with Blue Water Baltimore
A day on the farm with Casey Trees
@ Casey Trees Farm in Berryville, VA
Large tree pruning demonstration with Davey Trees
The apprentices first tree planting! We planted arborvitae in a city cemetery.
The first job shadow with Natural Concerns at a spring clean-up.
Noah from the Baltimore Community Toolbank talking about preserving rainwater at their Pigtown location.
@ the Baltimore Community Toolbank
Picking out perennials at Green Fields Nursery
Happy with his plants!
Thanks to Green Fields Nursery for a lesson in landscape design and nursery operations.
Touring one of Natural Concern's installations.
Talking more about landscape design on Natural Concern's Lake Clifton project.
For their final project, apprentices planted out tree pits with native, perennial plants.
Their pits are looking good...
And it helps keep weeds away too.
Neighbors were really happy with the outcome!