Trees of the Year Event

NOTE: For 2025, we are taking a break from the nomination process described on this page. Instead we will spend the year honouring the work that has been done thus far and taking a deeper dive into the world of trees, their importance to the ecosystem in your own garden, in our local parks, and in urban forests. To learn about this year’s educational events, see this post.

Comox Valley Nature holds an annual “Trees of the Year” event to identify and highlight individual trees of significant interest or importance or beauty in the Comox Valley. The goal of the event is to foster a strong connection with nature, increase awareness of cherished local trees, and raise interest in the value and protection of trees.

Any Comox Valley resident can nominate a tree they love within the Comox Valley Regional District boundaries. As of 2024, the nomination period runs from February 1 to March 31.

In past years, our event was referred to as Tree of the Year. Though the emphasis was on appreciating all the nominated trees, a winning tree was chosen by public vote.

Now, instead of a voting phase, we focus on seeing and valuing all the nominated trees during a touring phase. We offer cycle routes for both the nomination and touring phases.

Read our blog posts about upcoming and past Tree(s) of the Year events.

Nomination phase

A blog post announces the start of the nomination period. Comox Valley residents can then nominate any tree within the regional district boundaries, subject to the rules below. We welcome everyone’s participation!

When nominating a tree, consider your personal attraction to the tree. Is it beautiful or eye-catching? Is it ecologically or economically important? Does it have a unique history, or is it of cultural significance? Whatever your reason for choosing to nominate a particular tree, we invite you to share its story with us!

Are you curious about nominating a tree for our event but don’t have a particular tree in mind and are unsure of where to look for a tree? Consider checking out our cycle routes for the nomination phase. These will guide you to tree-rich areas that we have identified throughout our area and linked into cycle routes. These routes offer opportunities for observation, discovery and active exploration of trees.

During the nomination period, use our online nomination form here to submit your nomination.

The nomination form asks you to describe the tree, including the common or scientific name, approximate size, location and the history or significance of this tree to you. Don’t worry if you don’t know all this information — our team will visit all the nominated trees and provide any information that you are not sure of.

Nomination rules

1. Nominated trees can be either native or introduced. Since our native trees are iconic to our home in the valley and offer much to biodiversity, we encourage you to consider choosing a specimen of any native tree species, such as the following:

2. You can nominate more than one tree.
3. if the tree is on private land it should be accessible to view from public land OR there needs to be prior consent from the owner to view the tree on their property.

If you have questions about the event, please email toty [at] cvnature [dot] ca.

The event committee may contact you for further information, including to obtain a good photograph of the nominated tree if you have one. Otherwise one of our members who visits the site will take a photograph to accompany your nomination.

Touring phase

We publish descriptions and photos of the nominated trees after the nomination period closes on March 31, and encourage everyone to visit them.

All the nominated trees will go on a map for the year, articles and posts will highlight the stories of the trees, and on June 1, one nominator’s name will be drawn at random for a small prize.

As always, our team will create cycle or walking routes to tour all the nominated trees after the nomination phase closes. Look for a blog post on this website about these Tour 2024 routes by April 15.

The Tour cycle routes will remain available on the website, as we have noted that they continue to be accessed far later into the year and beyond.

History of the event

The concept began in the Czech Republic over 20 years ago and evolved into the European Tree of the Year Award, organized by the Environmental Partnership Association. It has since spread to several countries in Europe including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland, Bulgaria, Spain, Belgium, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany and Slovakia. The presentation ceremony takes place annually around March 21 which is the International Day of Forests.

In North America, Ashland, Oregon has held a Tree of the Year event since 1988.

CVN’s event was started through the initiative of member Cathy Storey, with the first set of nominations solicited from CVN members in 2017 and the first winner announced in early 2018. The event has since been expanded to invite nominations from the general public.

Cathy passed away in December 2020, but her legacy is carrying on. Our 2021 contest was designated in her honour, and a memento in the form of a painting with a tree theme was created by a CVN member. In addition to a gift basket, a nominator whose name is randomly drawn will have the privilege of enjoying the painting in their home for a year.

Gallery of winning trees (2018 to 2023)

[Click a photo to enlarge it.]