Green Streets Maintenance

If you’re interested in adopting a Green Infrastructure site, please complete the sign-up form.

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Green streets systems are maintained by the City, the City’s designated contractors, property owners or through partnerships with social enterprises. Maintenance responsibilities vary depending on the type of infrastructure and its location.

Help care for Toronto’s green spaces and make a real impact in your neighbourhood. We’re inviting residents to become trained volunteer stewards for Green Infrastructure (GI) sites across the city.

Launched in 2025 as a pilot partnership with GreenForceTO (GFTO), this program supports community-led care of GI planters while strengthening neighbourhood connections and enhancing local green spaces. Volunteers gain hands-on experience and knowledge in stormwater management, urban ecology, and horticulture, all while contributing to a healthier, more resilient Toronto.

What you’ll get

  • Training and ongoing support
  • Tools and materials to care for your site
  • Connections to like-minded community members
  • Opportunities to connect with green jobs through GFTO workforce development

Ready to get involved?

Complete the sign-up form.

Have questions or want to learn more? Contact Luisa Martinez at luisa@torontogreen.ca

In 2021, Green Streets launched the GreenForceTO project, which aims to:

  • Create local green jobs in landscaping and property maintenance
  • Support the maintenance of green infrastructure

The City partnered with two local Employment Social Enterprises, RAINscapeTO and Building Up , to hire and train individuals – experiencing barriers to employment – for the maintenance of bio-swales, pollinator gardens and other green spaces that are critical to increase the neighbourhoods’ climate resilience and biodiversity.

Since its inception GFTO has:

  • Employed over 27 Torontonians from equity deserving communities
  • Provided over 1,400 hours of paid training in horticulture-related and transferable skills
  • Maintained over 174, 823 m2 of GI and ROW horticulture
  • Collected upwards of 3,300 yard waste bags and 1,500 garbage bags
  • Integrated more than 3,500 plants into Toronto’s GI

For more information on the project and to be involved, contact Luisa Martinez at luisa@torontogreen.ca.

Both the City and the public have a role to play in the maintenance of green streets systems and horticulture in the right-of-way.

All specialized (technical) maintenance of green streets systems in the public right-of-way is the responsibility of the City or its designated contractor. This includes maintenance of stormwater or drainage infrastructure, irrigation monitoring equipment or any other project-specific components. The Life Cycle Activities manual outlines maintenance and monitoring activities that are required by the City or it’s designates to ensure the longevity of green streets assets.

If green streets systems or horticulture are installed in the boulevard, ditch or lawn abutting a residential or commercial property, it is the property owner’s responsibility to maintain any grass or plantings, as per Chapter 743 of the Municipal Code, Use of Streets and Sidewalks (Article V, Maintaining Boulevards). Maintenance activities by property owners may include: litter removal, mowing grass, weeding and cutting back overgrown vegetation.

Traffic islands, traffic circles or centre medians within a roadway may include green streets systems or horticulture, which are maintained by the City.

All City-owned trees will be maintained by the City or its contractors unless there is a formal, legal agreement in place such as with a Business Improvement Area.

Submit a service request for tree maintenance.