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In earlier years, trees were actually bought as liner stock from southwestern Ontario tree growers and grown to larger size
at Garrison Nursery. When a certain species or size tree was needed, it was dug by hand by skilled staff who knew the old methods of tying root balls with burlap and twine. The trees would be moved to their new locations to be planted in parks, along streets, and in ravines. When perhaps a thousand trees per year would be needed, the site was sufficient to meet demand. As the program grew to the present 110,000 trees per year, and as tree growers supplied more diversity and at more competitive prices, the site has changed into a holding yard where tractor trailers of trees are supplied just in time for them to move out on trucks to be planted. The site now mainly serves the downtown, lakefront district of the City of Toronto. Notable events over the history of Garrison Nursery seem to centre around birds. For the past eight years or so, a pair of mallard ducks, named Lunch and Dinner by the present day Nursery Technician, has graced the site each spring. They have their young and move on. One can’t help wondering if mockingbirds were present when the Fort was active. For the past decade or more, since cell phones and mic radios have been the mainstay of communication for staff, local mockingbirds have often sent staff running for the phone as the birds mimic the tones exactly. Killdeer have nested over the years preventing staff from moving trees from certain parts of the nursery each year. And many birds frolic in the puddles that sometimes form after irrigation. The north side of the site, the former Garrison Creek slope, was once used by nursery staff to grow vegetables which could be eaten over the lunch hour.
For more than fifty years the main purpose of Garrison Nursery has been to welcome new trees from their places of origin to the urban forest of Toronto. As a new welcome centre replaces this one, the memory will hopefully remain that the Fort York site was a launching point for urban forest renewal in Toronto.
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