BC Living
You’ve Gotta Try This in February 2025
Recipe: How to Make Pie Crust from Scratch
Valentine’s Day Drink Recipe: Hy’s Love Is Love Cocktail
Nature’s Pharmacy: 8 Herbal Boutiques in BC
How Barre Enhances Your Flexibility
Top Tips for Workout Recovery
Inviting the Steller’s Jay to Your Garden
6 Budget-friendly Holiday Decor Pieces
Dream Home: $8 Million for a Modern Surprise
Local Getaway: Hideaway at a Mystical Earth House in Kootenay
9 BC Wellness Hotels to Relax and Recharge in This Year
Local Getaway: Enjoy Waterfront Views at a Ucluelet Beach House
B.C. Adventures: Things to Do in February
5 Beautiful and Educational Nature and Wildlife Tours in BC
7 Beauty and Wellness Influencers to Follow in BC
11 Gifts for Galentine’s Day from B.C. Companies
14 Cute Valentine’s Day Gifts to Give in 2025
8 Gifts to Give for Lunar New Year 2025
Where to plant that cedar tree sapling you received on Earth Day?
This week, we celebrated Earth Day, and to commemorate this auspicious day, one of the local coffee companies, Ethical Bean, has sent me a gift.
It’s a tree.
OK, it’s not a huge tree, just a sapling (I think it’s a cedar) planted in a paper coffee cup. But not just any coffee cup, it’s a 100 percent biodegradable coffee cup, the very same type of cup the carbon-neutral roastery cafe uses to serve up its fair trade, organic brew.
All I have to do—according to the instructions affixed to the cup—is plant the entire package, cup and all, into the soil, and I’ll be doing my part to help cut carbon emissions.
While my colleague blithely placed his cup-o-tree on our lunchroom table “for the taking,” and assuaged himself of any green guilt, I feel a sense of obligation to ensure this little tree gets a good home. Maybe it’s because I grew up playing in the woods, scaling trees and turning them into forts. Maybe it’s because I drove to work today.
So, I check out the website of the company that supplies these trees to unsuspecting giftees like me. Forever Green Trees has a wealth of info on its website extolling the virtues of planting trees, like how a single tree can absorb a tonne of CO2 over 40 years. And how the average Canadian tree will rid the Earth of about 2.9 kilograms of carbon per year.
A little investigation helps me ID my little tree: Thuja plicata, a Western red cedar—and B.C.’s provincial tree. Since it can grow up to 50 feet and live for 1,500 years, I’m encouraged to “plant it in a location that will allow the tree to grow to maturity.”
No pressure.
But if I choose a good spot, just think of how much carbon this cedar can absorb for generations to come.
Any suggestions?