Miami Lakers will soon get a chance to pick up free trees near the town thanks to an initiative from
Miami-Dade County and TD Bank.
The county recently received a $150,000 grant from the county to support its Urban Forestry Plan and Million Trees Miami initiative. As part of the initiative, several community tree and garden giveaways will take place around the county in the coming months. The first will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. September 4 at the TD Bank location at 801 W. 49th Street in Hialeah.
Million Trees Miami and the Urban Forestry Plan aim to help expand the county’s tree canopy to 30 percent by 2030. Increased tree canopies are seen as an important tool in combating the increased heat created by man-made climate change by lessening the “urban heat island” effect.
Miami Lakes is already recognized as a leader in tree canopy and arbor stewardship; the town has been named a Tree City USA and already meets the 30 percent tree-canopy threshold that is the county goal. That commitment to trees dates back to the town’s origins. When the Graham family hired influential landscape architect and urban planner Lester Collins to design a modern town, his plan called for the dense layer of trees that can still be seen. Today the town preserves that aesthetic through its Beautification Master Plan. Originally adopted in 2014, one of the plan’s main purposes is protecting the town’s tree canopy.
For Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, an enhanced tree canopy is something that benefits all and should be the responsibility of all. “Growing our tree canopy is a responsibility we all share,” she said in a statement. “Every tree we plant helps protect our residents, create cooler neighborhoods and ensure a more resilient community for everyone.”
For county Department of Environmental Resources Director DERM Director and Chief Resilience Officer Loren Parra, partnerships like this “allow us to reach new areas, give away more trees to our residents, bring more shade to streets and playgrounds and even create colorful pollinator gardens.”
Tips for Florida tree planting
Once you get to the nursery, choose specimens with good leaf color, new growth, and general vibrancy; if the plants are dormant when you but them, look for good bud formation. When choosing several trees of the same species for an area, selectio specimens that vary in size and shape for a naturalized landscape. In addition, when choosing a variety of tree species for an area, choose at most only two or three species of complementary sizes and textures. Your landscape is not an arboretum, so don’t plant one of everything.
After you narrow your tree selection by form and size, consider the pots and roots. Look for the root flare - the spot at the bottom of the tree trunk where the roots begin to grow out. The root flare should be above the soil line; if it’s not, the tree has probably been repotted too deeply at least once, or maybe it’s been grown from a cutting that does not form a root flare at all.
--From “The Art of Maintaining a Florida Native Landscape” by Ginny Stibolt, available from University Press of Florida