Tree Information
Here is a collection of resources to help you learn more about urban forestry, from tree walks to Fremont Urban Forestry Grants to news articles.
Plant a Free Tree in front of your Home
Fremont Residents
City of Fremont is offering 1000 free street trees to be planted in front of neighborhood homes. Learn more on their website here: https://www.fremont.gov/government/departments/urban-forestry/want-a-tree-form
Newark Residents
City of Newark has started a pilot program to offer 50 free street trees in front of neighborhood homes. Contact Newark Parks staff Dan Cianciarulo sign up!
DID YOU KNOW -- Planting street trees throughout the landscape does a lot more than adding value to the property. Street trees, because of their location, can often maximize some of the beneficial qualities that all trees provide. Street trees absorb up to 9% more harmful tailpipe emissions than other trees, which improves air quality. Street trees provide shade which can lower sidewalk and asphalt temperatures by 36 degrees F. These substantially lower temperatures, which make sitting on benches, walking, and gardening much more pleasant. They can also extend the life of an asphalt street by 40%-60%. - Dan O'Donell, Chrysalis Gardens
UFF Recommended Street Tree Guide 2023
Tree selection has changed dramatically with research and lessons learned in our concrete urban streetscapes. Climate change also informs what species will thrive in prolonged heat waves and our diminished water supply. We've compiled a list of tree species that will best survive in the Tri-City area.
Download the Recommended Street Tree List (File size: 106KB)
Download Recommended Street Trees Photo Guide (File size: 2MB)
Tri-City Tree Walk Guides
Fremont Urban & Community Forestry Grants
In 2019, the City of Fremont received Urban & Community Forestry Proposition 68 Grant Funds to:
Establish Fremont's first Urban Forestry Master Plan for all trees in streets and parks, including a 40-year plan horizon for planning the creation of a healthy and expanded urban forest
In the next two years, plant 250 new trees, of which 84 of them will be in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Fremont
Conduct a thorough inventory and assessment of over 70,000 public trees
Establish an education and outreach program to teach property owners the value and benefits of trees, and how to care for and manage their trees
Hold training programs for tree contractors doing business in Fremont to ensure trees are getting the best care and to promote healthy, long-lived trees
Establish a community Tree Advisory Committee to help bring awareness and to promote the urban forest, help communicate values and benefits of trees to a diverse population, and to assist with tree disputes and appeals
Count on many new activities in the coming years around trees, the urban forest, and the expansion of one of Fremont's most precious assets. Tree program updates are available here: https://www.fremont.gov/government/departments/urban-forestry/urban-forest-plan
What is missing from the Urban Forest plan is a city budget and the direction of Fremont's City Council to follow urban tree ordinances that already are in place. Currently street trees are being cut down, incorrectly pruned or topped causing early tree demise. Also street tree replacement ordinances are unenforced because there is no budget or city staff to address this. The staff of three is only able to do so much in a city of our size.
Please support a larger and robust urban forestry program by letting City Council know. Also, tell the permitting department to require street trees be in place before they sign off on remodels where street trees are required in the ordinances.
Using practical guidance urban designers and local residents are working together to link local parks, greenways, street trees, stormwater basins, commercial landscaping, and backyards to support biodiversity while making cities better places to live.
“A new study notes that “the planet could support nearly 2.5 billion additional acres of forest without shrinking our cities and farms, and that those additional trees, when they mature, could store a whole lot of the extra carbon — 200 gigatons of carbon, to be precise.” Planting trees, in other words, could go a long way toward saving us from ourselves.”
“While we are seeing big, bold plans to tackle climate change, by House Democrats, 2020 presidential candidates, and even city governments, these plans are preliminary, and will take time to implement. But there’s one thing that can be done that combats the heat, cleans the air, and that just makes cities more pleasant to live: planting trees.”
“By analyzing decades of experiments, the researchers mapped the potential of carbon dioxide to increase forest biomass by the end of the century, when atmospheric concentrations of the gas could nearly double. This, in turn, will enable plants and trees to store more carbon.”
“When it come to promoting human health, not all green spaces are created equal. That’s the conclusion of new Australian research, which finds higher levels of wellness in areas marked by one particular manifestation of the natural world: leafy trees.”