The first thing you notice about “Palo Alto—it’s the Trees” The luxuriously leafy ‘urban forest canopy’ lives up to that name. It is only fitting, because the city is named for the El Palo Alto (the tall tree) coast redwood still standing in one of the accessible parks of the city. The City of Palo Alto is distinguished by the State of California and National Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree City—USA.

The City of Palo Alto is endowed with a large population of trees composed of magnificent native and non-native trees on public and private properties, and trees are one of the cities greatest natural resources. Trees are a source of shade, air conditioning and other environmental benefits providing quality of life and economic benefits to the community, residents and businesses

Palo Alto tree programs are aimed at sustaining trees in the challenging developed and natural area, and require careful planning and vigilant maintenance. The urban forest master planning structure targets important areas of environmental stewardship: tree management programs and key staffing for both public and private program areas, partnership and education with community residents and Canopy, a non-profit organization, and administration of the tree preservation and management regulations adopted in 1996. In concert, these areas function as primary tools to provide for the orderly management of regulated trees, and are fruitful far beyond what either of these segments alone could have independently accomplished.                   

The City of Palo Alto welcomes you to browse our programs, use the forms and tools for best practices, find out good contacts and links and learn from our educational resources and updated news release material