Following up on a promise to make Winnipeg a little prettier, Mayor Sam Katz showed off details from his self-styled cleaner, greener budget by announcing the city’s tree nursery is moving to St. Norbert, paving the way for a new park.

The Henteleff Tree Nursery will relocate to a site off Highway 75, just north of the Brunkild Dike.

A volunteer group, the Friends of Henteleff Park, hope to complete the transformation of its current home, 1980 St. Mary’s Rd., into a park filled with green space, walking trails, a vegetable greenhouse and possibly an interpretive centre.

Named for the grandfather of Yude Henteleff, the former market garden site was expropriated by the city in 1967 to become a “green area,” which never happened, Henteleff said yesterday.

“It’s taken some 40 years to bring it back to what it was,” he said.

The nursery’s move is one of the items planned for the $10 million earmarked for city beautification this year.

While the spending sounds like small potatoes because it’s being spread city-wide, borrowing an analogy from nature, Katz said the extra spending is a good start.

“Even the mighty oak tree starts from an acorn,” Katz said.

The city’s tree pruning cycle will be cut to once every 12 years, down from a 40 year cycle just two years ago. Stump removals will happen every four months instead of two years, Katz said.

The city is plotting out what to do with its flower pots. Downtown will see another 180 planters and more than 300 planters will line “image routes.”

Read more in tomorrow’s Winnipeg Sun.

source :winnipegsun.com