Detroit resident Marcellus Wheeler grew up getting his hands dirty.

Born into a family of farmers, Marcellus embraces a goal of living “clean and healthy,” which he puts into action each day as he operates an urban nursery called Urban Tree Farm. There, he raises seedlings and tends growing trees with a team of four, nurturing trees that will help to reforest Detroit.

As the country shifted to increased urbanization, these changes impacted Marcellus firsthand. During the Great Migration, Marcellus’s family lost their land and transitioned to working in factories in Detroit, all the while holding onto and passing on their love for farming. His grandfather owned an urban farm near Fort Wayne’s barracks in the southwest area of the city. They harvested carrots and cabbages from their family garden, canning and fermenting the produce in their root cellar and selling their crops and products at Eastern Market.

Marcellus’s farming skillset, rooted in his family history, was further developed during his time as farm manager for The Greening of Detroit, a local nonprofit that’s working to transform the industrial urban city center to a greener, cleaner place to call home. The Greening of Detroit involves Detroiters through job training programs, community engagement and education, and Marcellus adapted this model as well, training two apprentices each year. Although he continues urban farming, Marcellus has expanded his efforts to include forestry to “bring us back closer to nature.”

“Trees can’t take care of themselves,” Marcellus says. “They need management all the time until they are able to stand on their own.”

American Forests has been working with local stakeholders like Marcellus in Detroit for years to expand the city’s tree canopy, launching an effort alongside The Greening of Detroit and other partners in October 2022 with the creation of the Detroit Tree Equity Partnership. The nonprofits, alongside the City of Detroit, DTE Energy, Detroit Future City and the Erb Family Foundation, committed to planting more than 75,000 trees during the five-year pilot phase of the partnership, an effort that will employ over 300 Detroit residents in tree care and maintenance jobs and invest $30 million in the city’s neighborhoods.

A portion of those trees will come from the nursery Marcellus manages, and his team will also assist with tree maintenance for some of the sites. “Professionals need to manage [trees after planting],” Marcellus says. “I really see a lot of jobs and careers coming out of here with what we are trying to do.”

Marcellus’s operation is a rare one: of the nurseries in the U.S., very few are urban, and even fewer are privately owned and operated. Despite this, Marcellus remains optimistic, hoping to watch future generations mix innovative technology like drones alongside more traditional skills and knowledge to manage tree production. And he sees partnerships and collaborations like DTEP as foundational in advancing the city’s urban forestry legacy. “What motivates me [is] when we are partners that collaborate together,” he says. “We put differences aside, get on that one common goal.”

“I think we should all be educated on trees; why they are here, why we need them,” Marcellus shares. “[We need to] make sure that trees are a key to survival and for us to survive.”

And thanks to the tireless, dedicated work of people like Marcellus, they will.