In 2023, health workers and volunteers planted more than 1,000 trees at Edmonton’s Grey Nuns Community Hospital. It’s all part of a nationwide movement to tap into one of the most well-documented forms of healing medicine: nature, green spaces, and forests.
Trees are medicine
Trees for Life, a national organization focused on creating a “healthier, happier Canada by planting native tress where we live, work, and play,” worked with the city in 2023 to plant nearly 20,000 trees across Edmonton, including the ones at Grey Nuns Hospital. Today, the hospital’s staff, patients, and the broader community have access to an enhanced public greenspace.
It was the charity’s biggest tree-planting project in its history, but it wasn’t just about beautifying an urban space—it’s also the irrefutable evidence of how forests and nature improve every aspect of our general wellness and health.
Take mental health, for instance. Researchers at Stanford University found that simply being exposed to nature decreased overall risks of mental illness.
But that’s not all:
- People with an office view of trees take fewer sick days and see a significant rise in productivity compared to those who don’t.
- A systematic review of more than 50 different studies found that access to nature significantly reduced the odds of mortality from heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases.
- Hospital patients with a view of trees recover faster than patients who don’t have an outdoor view or who have a view but without trees.
Experts say there may be many reasons for this since trees contribute numerous benefits, including increasing an area’s oxygen levels, muffling sound pollution, and creating cleaner air. While the underlying factors are multifaceted, the results are clear.
And you can see that taking shape from coast to coast to coast.
The growing movement to plant trees for health
In 2023 alone, Trees for Life worked with 19 partners and 2,400 volunteers to plant 137,000 trees in Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick.
Other organizations and projects include the Canadian Health Care Forests by the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care; Trees for Hamilton, which recently worked with St. Joseph’s Urgent Care; and the City of London’s Million Tree Challenge, which has partnered with health care facilities like London Health Sciences Centre.
From fewer hospital visits to lower reported stress and anxiety levels, these tree projects align perfectly with these hospitals’ goals. It’s a movement that continues to gain momentum to this day.
by Joshua Duvauchelle
