Free tree-planting celebration to turn a vacant lot in Kensington into a biodiverse pocket forest, with live drumming and art from Mural Arts Philadelphia.
Rewilding Philadelphia is turning a vacant lot in Kensington into a biodiverse green space on Saturday, October 24, at the Jasper Street Greenspace. It's a tree planting celebration, and the day is open to anyone who wants to stop by and see it happen. The event runs from 10 AM to 2 PM at 2717 Jasper Street, and it's free.
On the day, Rewilding Philadelphia and the New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) are leading the planting, with Mural Arts Philadelphia on board. Artist-in-residence Pedro Ospina will be there, and there'll be a live drumming performance to keep things moving. It's not just about putting trees in the ground—there's food and education on the day, too.
To get some context: Rewilding Philadelphia is a long-term community project led by creative producer Pete Angevine. He's working with partners like the NKCDC, Mural Arts Philadelphia, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, RAIR, and ArtPhilly, along with the local community. The goal is to plant more than 1,500 native trees across Kensington using the Miyawaki Method, a way of restoring wild-forest conditions that's meant to be scaled and repeated. The benefits they're after are the practical ones: cooling, more biodiversity, stormwater remediation, carbon sequestration, soil remediation, and community resilience. The Jasper Street Greenspace has been an active site in the neighborhood for a while now, and residents have been invited to imagine and design the pocket forest themselves.
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The day is part of Mural Arts Month, a citywide celebration of free, accessible public art that this year covers more than 4,000 murals. This edition adds a processional performance piece, an art crawl, and a river-to-river exhibition, all leading up to the annual Mural Arts Fest at Love Park. The planting at Jasper Street is one of the stops along the way. It runs from 10 AM to 2 PM on Saturday, October 24, at 2717 Jasper Street in Kensington, and it's free.
