The Conservation Issue: Throwing Some Good Shade

It’s almost too easy to write a story about trees and urban forestry and start by quoting two famous lines of that long-ago poet Joyce Kilmer:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

But we’re not going to do that. Consider instead what a tree can do besides inspire poets, according to a series of recent studies:

• Air conditioning costs at your home can be reduced by as much as 30 percent if trees are planted nearby and in the correct locations.
• A healthy young tree can provide the equivalent of 10 room-sized air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.
• One acre of forest produces enough oxygen during a year for 18 people.
• Trees might even aid public safety. Car crashes in downtown Toronto declined by up to 20% on main streets lined with trees or planters, as opposed to those without, or minimal landscaping (according to the Journal of the American Planning Association).

Now, add in the fact that the earth is warming at an alarming rate and trees assume even greater importance, particularly here in Central Florida, where the summers are brutally hot and humid.

An oak tree on Orlando’s Palmetto Street.

“Step out from under a tree during the summer and feel the difference,” suggests Alan Marshall, Orange County’s environmental policy coordinator.

That respite from the sun can be worth as much as 10 to 15 degrees.

“It’s taking all that heat and melting it away,” explains Mark Miller, Mount Dora’s senior arborist.

Beyond all-important shade, trees are crucial to our environment because they essentially eat carbon dioxide, a chemical compound that absorbs and radiates heat. Trees basically breathe in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen through a process we learned about in grade school called photosynthesis.

According to the UF/IFAS Extension Orange County, one tree produces 260 pounds of of oxygen a year, and one acre of trees removes 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide from the air we breathe.

City volunteers get ready to plant trees.

Human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, has increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 47 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution during the mid-18th century, according to the National Forest Foundation.

The average annual global temperature has risen by 2 degrees over that time, which has triggered increasingly erratic weather that shows up in a variety of ways, including temperature extremes, diminished snow and sea ice cover, intensified natural disasters and altered, often degraded, habitats for plants and animals.

Trees offer hope of slowing or possibly reversing that trend in the most natural of ways.   

“Their (trees’) role is to mitigate climate change. There’s a lot of benefits to having trees,” says Kevin Camm, Orange County’s extension director with the University of Florida.

Miller predicts, “Trees are going to be huge…They’re necessary.”

Like many cities, counties and government agencies across Florida and the nation, Mount Dora is working to expand its urban tree canopy, which in laymen’s terms translates into the measurement of leaves, branches and stems of trees shading the ground when viewed from above.

A little more than one third of Mount Dora’s 8 square miles has tree cover. Unincorporated Orange County’s canopy checks in at nearly 35 percent of its 250 square miles, while Orlando is at 32 percent of its 119 square miles.

The county’s canopy had decreased by 5.5 percent during the past seven years, due in part to annexation and development. About 74 percent of the trees are on private property. Three kinds of oak, plus wax myrtle and pond cypress, are the more common trees in the county.

Orlando, under Mayor Buddy Dyer, has set an ambitious goal of growing its canopy to 40 percent by 2040. During 2020, Orlando’s canopy was 28 percent. The city maintains 107,023 trees today, compared to 88,316 in 2007, records show. Getting to a 40 percent canopy calls for a net increase of about 10,000 trees.

Mount Dora’s urban forester and certified arborist Mark Miller is leading the charge to extend the city’s urban tree canopy.

The strategy in Orlando and elsewhere is simple: keep the stock you have healthy, minimize the loss of trees to development and—most importantly—plant new trees above and beyond replacing casualties to new construction, old age and disease.

The key is “putting the right tree in the right place,” says Kathy Hall, Orlando’s reforestation manager for families, parks and recreation.

Sounds straight-forward, but that’s been a problem in the past. Trees often were planted too close to buildings or impervious surfaces like parking lots and roads, or vice versa. That stunted growth and life spans with the roots often cracking pavement and foundations, leading to the tree’s demise.

Another issue was planting during the wrong time, as in the summer, when everything is growing like crazy and the competition for nutrients and water is intense. New trees often flounder under such circumstances.

Hall, who oversees a tree giveaway program for Orlando residents, switched the new plantings to cooler months, from December through February. She also included watering instructions (10 gallons a day for at least two months). Losses went from 20 percent to 5 percent as a result.

During the past year, Orlando has given away and, just importantly, planted some 1,100 trees in the front yards of residents and on city-owned property. Orlando offers 12 varieties to residents.

Those who wish to request a free tree can do so from June 1 to Aug. 31 each year.

Hall estimates the city spends $200 to $300 on each tree it plants.

Orange County gives away another 1,200 to 1,500 trees annually to its residents, typically live oaks, cypress and magnolias, among others. The county does not plant the trees, though it offers instructions and educational pamphlets.

Mount Dora, which hired Miller a year ago with the intent of improving its canopy, relies on a crew of 50 volunteers who go around town watering and tending to trees. They have added about 100 new trees during the past year, most of them live oaks.

One of the Mount Dora volunteers is Marc Vaughn, a 68-year-old retired advertising photographer. He’s been working with Mount Dora trees for eight years.

An aerial view of Mount Dora. ©Shutterstock.com/Bradley GT

“It’s persistence,” Vaughn says of the city’s philosophy toward trees. “Every year we have to keep planting.”

Miller estimates the city has about 4,000 trees within its limits. He subscribes to the 3-3-3 theory: A person should be able to see three trees outside the home, live no more than 300 meters from a park and reside in a city with a minimum of a 30 percent canopy.

He also is a firm believer in tree-lined streets and is a fan of live oaks, which are slow growing but can have a life span of 100 years or more if properly situated and tended.

“If there isn’t a tree, then it’s not a street,” Miller says. “It’s a parking lot or highway.”

The City of Mount Dora has been an official Tree City USA for more than 35 years, enhancing urban forestry and creating sustainable green spaces. The Mount Dora Friends of the Environment and the city’s “tree stewards” are dedicated to keeping the city green as Mount Dora expands its tree plantings.

Government agencies weren’t aways so enthusiastic about trees. It wasn’t uncommon before the turn of the century for developers to clear cut property of all trees and greenery to make way for massive subdivisions or commercial construction. There was replanting, but not nearly enough to make up for the losses.

Now developers in almost all Central Florida jurisdictions need permits to take down trees and must promise to replace them in accordance with local ordinances. They also must keep as many of the existing healthy trees as possible.

“You have to save trees. We’re trying to come in with a scalpel,” says Stefano Alvernia, Orange County’s senior arborist, about how many trees his agency allows to be removed for development.

Orlando’s street tree trust fund pays for the purchase and proper installation of street trees by the city. Developers must pay $350 per tree when building permits are issued.

Street trees must be planted along the front of lots at intervals of no more than one tree every 50 feet, or no less than 100 feet. Developers can receive refunds if they plant trees themselves, according to city regulations.

The tree fund holds a little more than $6 million. In recent years, it has generated approximately $2 million annually, with expenditures totaling close to $1 million per year.

Orlando tries to plant trees that are fairly mature, already eight to 12 feet in height. That increases the odds of survival, Hall says.

In addition to lessening the effects of climate change, trees also provide a monetary boost, Orange County determined in a 2024 analysis of its “urban forest ecosystems.”

Using data provided by the U.S. Forest Service, Orange County determined its almost 14 million trees were responsible for all manner of improvements to the bottom line. Among them:

• Having a compensatory replacement structural value of $3.96 billion.
• Removing 1.95 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere. Estimated value: $333 million.
• Cutting down residential heating and cooling cost of $14.3 million per year thanks to the shade provided.
• Absorbing enough yearly to create an abatement value of $7.8 million annually.
• Providing erosion control that reduced stormwater runoff management costs of $10.9 million per year.

Regardless of the economic value of trees, Mount Dora volunteer Vaughn just loves having them around. He remembers being able to walk bare footed on Mount Dora streets when he was a youngster because the shade from trees was so prevalent back then. He said he can’t do that now, but hopes the future might be different.

“We don’t have a choice,” Vaughn says. “Without trees, we are going to burn up. It’s common sense.”

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