Camryn Woods is a reporter with the Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
BURLINGTON — On a warm Sunday evening in June, Margaret Skinner crouched near a young honey locust tree and plucked away the net of weeds that surrounded it. Her efforts, she knew, could help the sapling breathe by reducing its competition for nutrients and water.
This honey locust is just one of 600 trees that Skinner and her team of volunteers nurture throughout the summer. Most of the trees, having traveled in a tractor trailer truck from Oregon, will spend their most vulnerable years being cared for in the South Burlington–based tree nursery called Branch Out Burlington.
Once they graduate from the nursery three to four years later, the trees will provide shade, carbon sequestration and valuable habitats throughout the state of Vermont.
Branch Out Burlington, affectionately referred to by its members as “BOB,” is dedicated to enhancing the urban forest in Burlington, engaging community members through events like tree walks and weeding days and hosting an annual tree sale.
Skinner helped found the group in 1996 when the city lacked resources to care for its trees. Two years later, she was granted access to land that would become the nursery — at the time, stocked with only 40 trees, according to Skinner — which is currently located off of Shelburne Road in the University of Vermont Horticulture Farm.
“I don’t want to just plant trees. I want to make sure the trees that get planted in the community get cared for, because they weren’t and they were dying,” said Skinner, who also works full-time as an entomologist at the University of Vermont.
This care, Skinner said, includes removing weeds, selectively removing branches to improve health, securing trees in place with wooden stakes and watering them. Young trees can also be easily damaged by outdoor equipment like weedwhackers and lawnmowers, which should be avoided around them, she said.
That Sunday evening, Skinner was joined by the president of Branch Out Burlington, Jacob Holzberg-Pill, and the organization’s web designer, Nathan Hoffmann, who are part of the board’s eight to nine members.
When he found Branch Out Burlington, “I was looking for things to do that were outside, that were tree related, that were part of the community,” said Holzberg-Pill, who had moved to Burlington with his 1-year-old son. “I contacted Margaret, and I was like, “Hey, could I come help out?’”
Hoffmann joined the organization three years ago, when he was looking for volunteer opportunities as a graphic designer at OnLogic, a computer hardware manufacturing company. After attending multiple weeding events, he started going to the board meetings, cementing his long-term involvement.
“I wanted to learn more. There’s a wealth of knowledge here that you’d never believe. It was just such a cool opportunity to get more involved and to be a part of the community, doing something that was much bigger than me,” Hoffmann said.
On Tuesday, July 8, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Branch Out Burlington held a Weeding Bee in the nursery, which is open to the public every second Tuesday during the summer months. Its 20-some attendees chatted, cleared weeds from tree beds and puzzled over iPhone pictures of unidentified damage on folks’ front yard trees.
Once the weeding was done, Skinner provided free pizza and homemade cookies to volunteers. A ticket raffle was held, with prizes ranging from urban forestry books to a handmade wooden birdhouse.
“It’s a really special, fun way to get away from the work week and meet wonderful community members of all ages and from all over,” Hoffmann said.
The Essex Junction Tree Advisory Committee, established by the city council in 2013, also makes an effort to be at the Weeding Bees. They have two rows of trees specifically allocated to the city, but volunteers help care for the entire nursery.
“It was a win-win for us because we could, with our budget, be able to really increase the number of trees we could get into the community,” said Nick Meyer, chair of the committee.
Weeding Bees and Branch Out Burlington’s other volunteer opportunities, like pruning and grafting workshops and tree planting events, make urban trees economically viable for cities.
When trees are bought older and immediately ready to plant in urban environments, they’re much more expensive, according to Holzberg-Pill — potentially around $500 each.
Instead, Branch Out Burlington buys its trees from Oregon nurseries for $50 at younger ages with the knowledge that they’ll be stewarded by volunteers for a few years until they’re ready to move.
Branch Out Burlington’s July 2025 newsletter wrote that it give away hundreds of trees to local schools, towns and non-profits that have the means to take care of them every year. The ability to fund projects like this comes from donations and tree sale profits.
Green Mountain Farm-to-School, a nonprofit that builds healthy school environments, the Intervale Community Farm, a Burlington-based agricultural center, and Perkins Pier in Burlington, for example, have received tree donations, according to the newsletter.
Going forward, Skinner hopes to continue developing Branch Out Burlington’s media presence. “We are lucky to get 20 people up here to help take care of these trees once a month,” she said. “As I look around the nursery, I could spend every day, all day, and there would still be work to do.”
Urban trees are becoming more important as the climate warms, according to Meyer.
“If we didn’t have any trees on all our sidewalks and open areas, days like today would be even hotter,” Meyer said. Cooling the temperature in cities and slowing rainfall in tree canopies are forms of stormwater management, and green spaces can give a visually softening effect to concrete environments, Meyer said.
“Hopefully these trees are going to be here for generations,” he said.
