City of Lakewood Planted Hundreds of Trees This Fall

November 16, 2015

The City of Lakewood just completed its citywide fall tree planting effort by planting 216 this fall, encompassing 18 different species of trees as we strive to increase the diversity of our urban forest as we continue to optimize Lakewood’s level of investment in trees.

At the conclusion of the fall planting season, the City will have planted 805 trees in the past two years to grow our next generation of trees while continuing to maintain the health and vigor of all trees in the Lakewood Urban Forest – to capture the long-term ecological, economic and social benefits; and for public safety.

At the conclusion of the fall 2015 planting season, the City of Lakewood public tree inventory will consist of just over 12,700 trees – our highest number to date – with improved species diversity. The top ten tree species comprise 54 percent of the population and one genus – ACER (Maple) – comprises 24% of the total population. In 1996 it was determined that just ten tree species comprised 82 percent of the population and that one genus – ACER (Maple) – comprised 39 percent of the total population.

Species diversity is important so that the urban forest is resilient to insect and disease threats and the impacts of climate change. Many pests and diseases attack a whole genus, so diversity is a must. Street monoculture has proven to be detrimental and will be avoided.

Tree canopy provides many benefits to communities, improving water quality, reducing storm water runoff, saving energy, lowering city temperatures, reducing air pollution, carbon sequestration and increasing property values.

Using formularies developed by the U.S. Forest Service related to carbon storage and sequestration, Lakewood’s existing 28.5 percent urban forest canopy cover stores 4,315 tons of carbon and sequesters nearly 45 tons of carbon each year.