three students, one with a shovel, planting a tree

Rodden Park Little Forest

Rodden Park Little Forest—located on the slope of a hill across from Centennial Public School—is an exciting addition to Calvin Park! Over 200 students from nearby schools, with the help of the neighbourhood, planted the Rodden Park Little Forest.

Our community

To invite residents to our first meeting, we delivered flyers to more than 600 homes in the neighbourhood surrounding Rodden Park and posted the invitation on social media. Thirty community members attended at least one of the four meetings, and we were grateful for their support and suggestions. We discussed planting a Little Forest and a Food Forest, and decided that we would proceed with both forests on the west side of the park (across from Centennial School), with the Food Forest at the top of the hill and the Little Forest on the slope.

About the site

Rodden Park is the site of the historic Kingston Penitentiary Upper Farm. The site has a limestone farmhouse and a barn constructed during the 1880s by convict labour, the City of Kingston greenhouses and the Paterson Memorial Garden stewarded by Gardening Kingston. Because the soil on the west side of the park is shallow soil, we chose a location with deeper soil in full sun on the downward slope for the Little Forest. 

Why we planted a Little Forest

overhead drone view of a crescent shaped newly planted little forest, colourful flags marking each tree

Rodden Park is a 7.55 acre park with huge areas of turfgrass. Although open areas are important for activities such as tobogganing, flying kites and playing sports, members of the original working group realized that a section of the park could be transformed to increase biodiversity. Planting a diversity of native trees and shrubs supports the birds, butterflies, moths and other insects who co-evolved with these trees. The Little Forest will, in 15-20 years, become a complex biodiverse ecosystem that will regenerate soil, cool the area, slow wind, purify the air, be a calming influence and offer natural beauty through its diverse colours, textures and seasons of interest. We hope teachers and students from local schools will use this site to learn more about our native plants and wildlife!

Preparing the ground

On April 25, 2025, more than 200 students from neighbouring schools - Centennial, St. Thomas More, Calvin Park (Eco Club), and Polson Park – laid down cardboard (to smother the grass), distributed a 4-inch layer of nutrient-rich leaf compost, and raked the compost smooth. 

six young people loading compost into wheelbarrows and moving up a path

Over the next few days, 25 volunteers (residents of Calvin Park and supporters from outside the area) came out to move the remaining compost and distribute large piles of mulch. A big thank you to all our hard workers!

eight students posing with wheelbarrows and rakes over the newly spread, smoothed out compost

About the forest

Our plant selection team chose a variety of native species based on the Miyawaki method of recommended percentages for each of the four layers: canopy, tree, understory and shrub. We prioritized species who are drought-tolerant once established. 

a spreadlist listing all of the plants in this Little Forest

Planting day

On October 3, 2025 we planted approximately 450 seedlings in a 150m2 area. The majority of the plants were plugs, with a few in one gallon pots. More than 200 students from neighbouring schools came to help. Small groups of students watched and listened as experienced volunteers demonstrated proper planting techniques, then the students had fun planting. Everyone worked very hard under Josh Cowan's leadership. 

Stewardship

11 people posing in front of a newly planted forest where they had just applied tree wraps

Over the next three years a group of volunteers will care for the Little Forest by removing unwanted plants, applying mulch, watering when necessary and protecting the plants from predators using spiral tree wraps. After three years, the trees and shrubs will be self-sufficient, but we plan to continue to monitor and remove trees if they have fallen outside the edge of the forest, remove invasive species and prune gently if branches are rubbing each other.

Our future plans

overhead drone shot of a newly planted banana shaped little forest with all of the trees wrapped

We plan on providing seating in the curved section of the Little Forest, inviting people to sit in the shade and enjoy the sounds of birds, insects and wind rustling through leaves. We also hope to install educational signage identifying the various species of trees and shrubs as well as work with local teachers who plan to use the Little Forest as an outdoor classroom.

Lessons learnedlarge area covered with cardboard, the cardboard partially covered with compost, and young people with wheelbarrows in the background

  • Source 20% more cardboard than the size of the area to be mulched to allow for overlap. For our 150m2 area, we needed 180m2 of cardboard. Start collecting cardboard from bike shops, appliance stores and other businesses who have large boxes several months in advance to ensure that you have enough. Remove all staples, tape and adhesive labels. 
  • Due to the hot, dry summer the mulch didn’t break down as much as we’d hoped and the soil under the mulch was very dry. To make planting easier and to ensure the plants had enough moisture, volunteers watered the site deeply before planting day.
  • To give the trees the best possible start, we wanted to ensure they were planted correctly. We created a handout outlining the correct planting technique and sent it to the teachers to review with their students before the planting day. On planting day, ten coaches gave small groups of 3-4 students a live planting demonstration, then were available to answer any questions. With the larger classes of 45-50 students, more coaches would have made supervision easier. Despite this, our quality control inspection the day after planting found that only about 6% of the plants needed to be replanted which speaks highly of how well prepared the students were.
  • When working with students, work with teachers ahead of planting day to ensure you have permission for photos showing students faces to be posted online. If you do, take a lot of fun group shots and closeups of smiling faces! If you don't have permission, instruct volunteer photographers to take photos from behind, at a distance, of hands and arms only or of bodies with hair obscuring faces. 
  • Put on protective spirals soon after planting to prevent rabbit predation.

Our heartfelt thanks

Our heartfelt gratitude to all of the enthusiastic students, teachers and volunteers who made this such a successful planting! Thanks to Stephen Tiffany, a teacher at Centennial Public School, for contacting the teachers at local schools and organizing the student schedule. Thanks to the volunteers who brought shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows for students to use. Thanks to the City of Kingston and local tree care companies for providing the arborist woodchips. And, last but not least, thanks to Trees for Life and Gardening Kingston for the funding that made this Little Forest possible.