City of San Diego Street Tree Division

The Urban Forestry Section oversees the planting and maintenance of trees and other vegetation along streets, sidewalks, and other City rights-of-way. The program works closely with nonprofit organizations to increase the number of trees in the City and help improve the quality of life. Current tree inventory includes over 30,000 palms and 170,000 various shade trees.

An urban forest is simply trees and vegetation in and around a town or city environment. In San Diego, the only part of the forest managed by public agencies is that which grows on public land such as along streets and highways, in parks, and around public buildings. Like a natural forest, an urban forest is an entire ecosystem which includes trees on both public and private property. However, unlike a natural forest, an urban forest usually needs help from people to survive.

The City of San Diego's Tree Selection Guide (PDF: 48K) provides information about trees recommended for use in the public right-of-way. The guide encourages selections that are compatible with the planting location, thus preventing damage to public improvements, while ensuring species diversity. For further information, click here.
 

Cool Communities Shade Tree Program, San Diego Regional Energy Office

The San Diego Regional Energy Office, is giving away FREE shade trees to single-family homes, multi-family buildings, and K-12 schools throughout Orange and San Diego counties (must be an SDG&E customer). And not little tiny trees either. These are full-sized, 10- to 15-gallon nursery quality specimens in your choice of over 20 varieties. Each home can receive up to 10 trees per household. For more information and to download the program booklet and application, click here.

One of the fundamental components that sets a city apart from its rural surroundings is the climate that prevails over urban environments. In urban areas, buildings and paved surfaces have gradually replaced preexisting natural landscapes. As a result, solar energy is absorbed into roads and rooftops, causing the surface temperature of urban structures to become 50 - 70 °F higher than the ambient air temperatures. The albedo is a measure of the amount of solar energy reflected by the surface. As such, low albedo implies higher surface temperatures since the larger amounts of energy are absorbed. As surfaces throughout an entire community or city become hotter, overall ambient air temperature increases. This phenomenon, known as an "urban heat island," can raise air temperature in a city by 2 - 8 °F. For further information, click here.
 

Dudek Engineering and Environmental, Urban and Community Forestry

Urban and community forests are vital parts of Southern California’s infrastructure and essential to the well-being of residents’ health and welfare. Through properly designed and maintained forests and individual trees, communities can benefit from cooler summer air, warmer homes in winter, cleaner air and water, quieter streets, peaceful neighborhoods and overall improved urban environments.

Dudek’s urban foresters and arborists have extensive experience working for a wide range of clients involved in urban and community forestry including city public works, parks and recreation, and planning and building departments; utilities such as water, wastewater, and gas and electric whose pipelines and facilities touch urbanized forest areas; land developers requiring assistance with initial planning and CEQA studies; landscape architects who need assistance assessing existing trees for preservation or removal, identifying specific species to fit with landscapes and landscape audits; attorneys and insurance companies requiring arboricultural forensics and expert witness; and homeowners' associations requiring tree inventory and management plans and landscape audits. For further information, click here.
 

Urban Corps of San Diego

Urban Corps of San Diego was founded in 1989 through a partnership of local elected officials and community leaders. Starting with a grant of $130,000 and 20 youth, Urban Corps began providing job training and educational opportunities for young men and women 18 to 25 years old from disadvantaged inner-city communities – job opportunities that would also conserve our natural resources. Today Urban Corps provides job training and educational opportunities to more than 400 young people annually-young people committed to changing thier lives, needing a second chance, or just an opportunity.

Focusing on the life-changing impact of a good education, strong work ethic and service to one’s community, Urban Corps now contracts with nearly 300 sponsors—local government, non-profit organizations, businesses and corporations. These contracts make possible temporary employment and job training for Corps embers while supplying numerous services to our sponsors. Corps embers are identified by the Urban Corps’ trademark green uniform as they participate in paid work experience and community projects. Projects include Graffiti Abatement, Recycling, Environmental Projects and Urban Forestry. Crews of Corpsmembers receive specialized training in tree planting, tree care, pruning and watering. While planting trees to improve urban, low-income and neighborhoods, Corpsmembers are educated on the aesthetics, benefits and importance of trees to the environment. For further information, click here.
 

West Coast Arborists

WCA is a complete urban forestry maintenance and management firm that specializes in comprehensive, continuous, consistent, and safe tree care. Services include tree pruning, raising, removal, planting, watering, emergency, and custom information management. Our Company has been in business in California since 1972. In 1978, WCA incorporated under the laws of the State of California. We operate under California State Contractor License #366764 in both class C61 and C27 with an A+ rating. Our Dunn and Bradstreet rating is 1A2. WCA is fully insured and can provide certificates of insurance for up to $10,000,000. We can also provide bid, labor and material bonds for all contracts. We are one of the largest tree care companies in California; our corporate headquarters are in Anaheim, with district offices in Fresno, Stockton, Buena Park, Riverside, and Irvine.

We are a professional organization that employs only the highest standard of tree care professionals, including over 35 ISA Certified Arborists and over 100 ISA Certified Treeworkers. Our modern fleet consists of over 500 custom-designed vehicles and associated equipment. We have a full service, in house, fleet maintenance department. WCA has developed a State-of-the-Art on-line urban forest management software program called ArborAccess On-Line that will be offered to each customer. In addition to providing quality tree maintenance services in the field, WCA also provides a complete tree site inventory and a Master Street Tree Plan. For further information, click here.