Tree Time

OUR GREENSCAPE CONTINUES TO DEFINE CORAL GABLES 100 YEARS AFTER THE CITY’S FOUNDING

You know you’re in Coral Gables when you look up and see the leaves. The city’s signature tree-lined streets owe much of their appeal to the leafy canopies gracefully arching overhead, providing not only shade and color, but also mitigation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Beauty has its benefits in the City Beautiful.

As it happens, Coral Gables is among 3,600 “Tree Cities” listed by Tree City USA, which identifies and designates green communities in all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C and Puerto Rico. “Greening,” as the word implies, aims to incorporate environmentally-friendly materials and practices throughout the built environment, where trees stand on the frontline of defense against the impact of global warming. In the Gables, trees such as oaks, banyans, palms, sycamores, pines, elms, and others don’t just beautify the city – they protect it, even as local development encroaches on their territory.

New York, like all industrialized cities, faces similar issues. Developers and city officials recently drew the ire of grade school children when it was announced that the Downtown’s Elizabeth Street Garden would be replaced by a housing project. According to an August 11, 2024 story in The New York Times, fourth-grade students became agitated about where they’d play and have their Easter egg hunts once the Garden was gone. One young student, when questioned about its loss, asked: “What’s going to happen to the animals [who live in the trees]?”

If the loss of trees and gardens has global repercussions, it’s on the local level that most environmental concerns are addressed. In Coral Gables, many of our green initiatives are overseen by the Greenspace Management Division of the city’s Public Works Department, which maintains almost 40,000 trees in public rights-of-way, road medians, and other public spaces. Unfortunately, as new buildings proliferate in the city, our greenscape has diminished, leaving us to wonder if two seemingly irreconcilable environments – the natural and the built – can co-exist to the advantage of neither.

CHOOSE YOUR NOMINEE FOR THE “TREE OF THE YEAR”

As part of the city’s effort to promote the preservation of trees in our “urban forest,” the Landscape Beautification Advisory Board will host a Tree of the Year contest. Residents are invited to nominate one or more trees, with a prize going to the person who nominates the winning tree. Results will be announced on Arbor Day, April 25, 2025. To enter, go to coralgables.com/department/public-works/tree-year-contest


Story written by Bruce Fitzgerald and Karelia Martinez Carbonell, president of the Historic Preservation Association of Coral Gables. Photos courtesy  of Steven Brooke