Michelle Coss | DNR
Michigan’s “Happy Little Trees” program is a partnership between the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Bob Ross Inc. that uses the late TV painter’s famous catchphrase to raise native trees for state parks. The trees are grown from locally collected seed by people serving prison sentences who are learning horticulture, then planted by volunteers in parks that have lost trees to pests and disease. It took on the Bob Ross name in 2019, the centennial year of Michigan’s state parks, but its roots go back to 2004.
Here is how the program works, why it carries Bob Ross’s name, and what it has achieved since.
Why Bob Ross?
Bob Ross hosted The Joy of Painting on public television from 1983 to 1994, finishing a landscape in each half-hour episode with a soft voice, a big brush and his wet-on-wet oil technique. Before television he spent about 20 years in the US Air Force, retiring as a master sergeant. He died in July 1995 at the age of 52, yet his show found a vast new audience online, and phrases like “let’s add some happy little trees” became part of popular culture.
That gentle, encouraging style made his name a natural fit for a tree-planting campaign. Bob Ross Inc., the company Ross founded with Annette and Walt Kowalski, agreed to lend his likeness and his best-known phrase. The DNR has credited the rebrand with drawing far more public attention to work that had been going on quietly for years.
From “prison grow” to Happy Little Trees
The program began in 2004 as a collaboration with the Michigan Department of Corrections’ Horticulture Education program. Participants learn practical job skills by growing seedlings from native trees found in Michigan’s state parks. In its early years it was funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, with a specific aim: replacing the millions of ash trees killed by the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle from Asia that has devastated ash across the Great Lakes region.
Before 2019 the effort was informally known as “prison grow.” In an April 2019 Arbor Day advisory, the DNR announced it was renaming the program in partnership with Bob Ross Inc. and that more than 1,000 trees would be distributed and planted that spring, starting at Warren Dunes State Park and moving on to parks across both the Lower and Upper Peninsulas.
How the trees get from seed to park
The process is slower and more careful than simply buying nursery stock:
- Seed collection. Volunteers gather seed from native trees in and around the parks, so the new trees share the local genetics of the region’s existing forests.
- Growing. Participants in the corrections horticulture program raise the seed into saplings, learning plant care, propagation and nursery skills along the way.
- Planting. Volunteers and park staff plant the young trees in parks where pests, disease or storms have opened gaps in the canopy.
- Aftercare. Parks protect and monitor the trees so that they survive their vulnerable first years.
Species are chosen to suit each site. At Yankee Springs Recreation Area, for example, WOOD TV8 reported that red maples were planted to replace ash and oak lost to emerald ash borer and oak wilt; ranger Brad Bedford noted that once a tree is infected, there is little staff can do. Other native species have been reported in coverage of the program, but the DNR does not publish a single fixed list.
The parks, the signs and the volunteers
The 2019 plantings were spread across more than 20 parks, among them Ludington, Silver Lake, Mears, Sleeper, Port Crescent, Tahquamenon Falls, Wagner Falls, Fayette, Muskallonge Lake and Laughing Whitefish Falls. Every volunteer received a Happy Little Trees T-shirt, and Orchard Beach State Park, Port Crescent State Park and Yankee Springs were the first scheduled to receive bright “Happy Little Trees Ahead” signs bearing Ross’s smiling face. Signs now mark parks where trees have been planted.
The name worked. DNR natural resources steward Heidi Frei told WOOD TV8 that the rename helped the department recruit more volunteers. Early press coverage reported that hundreds of people signed up shortly after the April 2019 announcement, though we could not confirm the often-quoted figure of 500 from official sources.
What the program has achieved
According to the DNR, the program has produced more than 100,000 native plants, shrubs and trees since 2004. Thanks to the Bob Ross partnership, more than 2,100 trees have been planted across 20 Michigan state parks.
Fundraising has grown too. The DNR now runs a virtual “Happy Little 5K” every April, timed around Earth Day and Arbor Day. Runners and walkers choose their own route and pace, receive a T-shirt and finisher’s medal, and their registration fees support planting, seed collection and forest protection. The event has expanded to other states, with funds shared in proportion to each state’s participation, and the DNR reports it has raised more than $1.5 million for tree planting and forest health overall.
Why programs like this matter
The project tackles two problems at once. Invasive species such as the emerald ash borer have stripped many Michigan parks of mature trees, and replacing them with locally sourced native species helps forests recover in a way that suits local wildlife and conditions. At the same time, prison education programs give participants skills they can use after release; horticulture is a practical trade that can lead to work in nurseries, landscaping and forestry.
A small correction to some older reports: the 2019 launch was timed to the 100th anniversary of Michigan’s state park system, not to Bob Ross’s birthday (he was born in 1942). And the trees are grown by people in state prisons, not county jails.
For anyone who wants to help, the DNR’s Happy Little Trees page explains how to volunteer at plantings, register for the 5K or donate to its tree planting and protection fund. Ross liked to remind viewers that there are no mistakes, only happy accidents; in Michigan’s parks, his name now helps grow something more lasting than paint.
Sources: Michigan DNR: Happy Little Trees; Michigan DNR media advisory, April 24, 2019; WOOD TV8: Happy Little Trees reforesting state parks; Wikipedia: Bob Ross. Header photo: Michelle Coss, Michigan DNR.
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