Every tree planted through the 10,000 Trees Initiative comes with an informational card specific to that tree species! Below you can find links to the digital versions of each of these cards.
10,000 Trees Initiative
Building resilience and equity through tree planting on private property.
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Welcome!
Urban trees provide many environmental, economic, social, and health benefits to the community, including: reducing stormwater runoff, improving water and air quality, reducing neurotoxic exposures that can impair brain development in babies and young children, increasing biodiversity and resiliency against invasive species, moderating summer temperatures, lowering utility costs, improving quality of life, and beautifying the city. Our urban tree canopy is therefore crucial to our resiliency and carbon neutrality work. A properly managed urban tree canopy can create a safer and healthier future for residents, especially for those who are most vulnerable. But an urban tree canopy doesn’t just include the trees lining our streets, in our parks, and around our public buildings. It’s also comprised of trees on private property, from single-family homes and multi-family residential sites to private businesses and houses of worship.
In recognition of this, the Office of Sustainability and Innovations has developed the 10,000 Trees Initiative with the goal of seeing 10,000 new trees planted on private property in the city by the year 2030. The trees added by this initiative will enhance our current canopy cover and will help to make our urban tree canopy more resilient by increasing both species and structural diversity. On this page, you can find information on the programs offered through this initiative and the ways in which you can get involved and add trees to your property. More information on Ann Arbor’s urban tree canopy can be found on the City’s Forestry web page.
Tree Equity
The many benefits that trees provide are often lacking the most in the communities that are most in need of those benefits. “Tree Equity” means managing our urban forest to address these inequalities and ensure that tree canopy is equitably distributed across our community. According to non-profit American Forests, Ann Arbor’s overall Tree Equity Score is 92 – however, there are census blocks within the City that have Tree Equity Scores as low as 77 and current canopy cover as low as 4%. By focusing on the neighborhoods within these census blocks, we can help to build tree equity in our community and establish a healthier, more connected urban forest. To learn more about Ann Arbor’s Tree Equity Score and view a map by census block, visit https://www.treeequityscore.org/map and search for “City of Ann Arbor, MI.”
FreeTree Giveaway Program
Through the 10,000 Trees Initiative's FreeTree program, you can receive free seedlings to plant on your private property! All seedlings distributed through this program are donated to or purchased by the City of Ann Arbor and are provided to residents at no cost. All you need to do is register for a FreeTree event near you and request your trees, show up at the distribution site on the day of the event, pick up the seedlings in your vehicle, and take them home to plant! Delivery options are also available for those with mobility or access challenges. Tree care and planting information is provided with every tree.
We typically hold one FreeTree Giveaway event each year, in the spring. To be alerted when we have an upcoming event, please register for our mailing list here.
Fall Coupon Codes Program
This fall, the Office of Sustainability and Innovations (OSI) is collaborating with the Washtenaw County Conservation District (WCCD) to provide discounts on native plants and trees to residents of Ann Arbor. WCCD holds an annual Fall Tree & Native Plant Sale to distribute native trees and shrubs, herbaceous plants, and gardening kits to the community. This year, OSI and WCCD are excited to offer coupon codes valid for discounts on a variety of these native plants and gardening kits.
To receive a coupon code valid for native trees, sign up for the 10,000 Trees Initiative mailing list here by August 8th. To receive a coupon code valid for native herbaceous plants and gardening kits, register as a participant in the Pollinator-Aware Yard Care program here (be sure to mark “yes” when asked if you are interested in receiving email updates) by August 8th. Coupon codes will be emailed out to these email lists on August 8th. WCCD sales open online starting August 11th.
Tree Planting & Maintenance Programs
The City of Ann Arbor was awarded in 2024 a $1 million grant from the United States Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry Program (with American Forests acting as a pass-through partner), with $530,000 of those dollars going towards tree planting and tree maintenance programs on private property through the 10,000 Trees Initiative. Through these programs, we will be able to connect private property owners – including single-family homes, multifamily properties, houses of worship, and more – with contractors who can plant large-diameter trees, assess tree maintenance needs, prune trees for health and safety, and remove dead trees. With 100% of these funds going towards communities identified based on tree equity data, this historic investment will be a critical factor in advancing tree equity within Ann Arbor and ensuring that a healthy, diverse, and vibrant tree canopy grows throughout our entire community.
The private property maintenance and planting programs are expected to launch in late 2025 or early 2026. Keep an eye on this page or sign up for our mailing list to stay up-to-date on these new programs.
Neighborhood Tree Walks
To celebrate Tree Town's many amazing trees, the Office of Sustainability and Innovations is excited to announce a new series of self-guided neighborhood tree walks! We hope that these walks will help connect you with our urban trees and their place in making Tree Town more sustainable. Our neighborhood tree walks are easy to follow on a smart phone or tablet and will guide you through the neighborhood, helping you identify each tree while also providing some fun and interesting facts. The tree walks will also showcase the numerous benefits that each tree provides to our community by calculating the value of their ecosystem services and the cost savings they provide for nearby buildings. Each tree walk will begin and end in the same location and will provide basic information on accessibility and estimated walking times.
Join us on a guided version of the Kerrytown Tree Walk on August 27th, starting at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market! Learn more and RSVP here.
Check out our existing Neighborhood Tree Walks below - and stay tuned for more in other neighborhoods city-wide!
Share Your Tree Story
As we continue to develop the neighborhood tree walks and other engagement materials, we want to highlight all of Ann Arbor's fantastic trees – and need your help to do so! We would love to hear from you about the trees that are important in your life. If you have a story about a tree anywhere in Ann Arbor, please tell us your story by filling out this survey - and we may use it as part of a tree walk or in other engagement materials!
TREEducation Corner
Click on the tabs below to learn more about trees in Ann Arbor:
Planted a Tree Recently? One of the most important things you can do to care for your tree is to protect the trunk from physical damage. Injuries from lawn mowers, weed whips, and other sources are a leading cause of death in newly planted trees - so adding a tree trunk protector is an important step in the planting process! Learn more by watching this video put together by PocketForests.Org.
Get to meet some of Ann Arbor's tree species through our virtual tree tour. Simply click a tree on the map to bring up a link where you can explore the tree from different angles! And check out the video below for a guided version of the tour, led by OSI Senior Analyst Sean Reynolds. The City has also created a virtual tour of Ann Arbor's champion trees - the largest of each tree species within the city! Check it out here.
Small areas of densely planted native trees and shrubs can help sequester large amounts of carbon, increase the biodiversity of our urban tree canopy, and lower urban temperatures. Want to learn more about these "pocket forests" and how you could install one on your property? Check out this flyer put together by PocketForests.Org.
What happens to our dead and dying urban trees after they're removed? Typically, they're turned into mulch and firewood - processes that release most of the carbon stored within the wood. But, the City is working with Urban Ashes to change that status quo here in Ann Arbor by implementing the Circular UrbanWood Triconomy (CUT) Model - in which trees are removed in such a way as to preserve the wood for use as lumber, keeping most of the carbon sequestered! Learn more by watching the short video below.
Volunteer Opportunities
We are always recruiting volunteers to help run our FreeTree Giveaway events and/or plant trees at our Community Tree Planting events. If you are interested in volunteering, please email Sean Reynolds at sreynolds@a2gov.org and indicate which type of events you are interested in helping with. Please keep in mind that the Community Tree Planting events are labor-intensive and will require digging and heavy lifting.
Interested in helping to take care of our city's public trees and parks? Check out the Citizen Pruner Program and the Natural Area Preservation volunteer program.
In addition, OSI helps to adopt our City parks and holds a monthly workday with GIVE365 (from 3-5pm on the third Friday of each month, except December-February). If you are interested in volunteering to help maintain our parks with OSI (by piking up trash, removing invasives, clearing brush from trails, etc.), please email Dana Novak at dnovak@a2gov.org.
