We are committed to maintaining a healthy and safe urban canopy while preserving tree diversity for future generations. A healthy, diverse tree canopy reduces urban heat, enhances air quality, supports wildlife, improves community health and well-being, and contributes to the city’s visual charm.
Boulder has proudly held the Tree City USA designation from the National Arbor Day Foundation since 1984 and has been recognized as one of the Tree Cities of the World since 2019.
Through thoughtful stewardship and community collaboration, our Forestry team is growing a greener, safer, and more resilient city – one tree at a time.
Our responsibilities include
- Tree Planting and Establishment: New trees are planted in city parks and the public street right-of-way each spring as replacements for those removed or through requests from adjacent property owners. Visit Street Tree Planting Program | City of Boulder to request a free tree for the right-of-way adjacent to you home.
- Rotational and Safety Pruning: Street and park trees are pruned for both health and public safety through a systematic pruning rotation (currently a 12-year rotation for street trees and a 9-year rotation for park trees).
- Tree Removals: Boulder Forestry surveys all park and street right-of-way trees annually for tree health and major public safety concerns. Dead, diseased, and high-risk trees are removed and replaced when possible.
- Integrated Pest Management (including emerald ash borer): Trees on both public and private property are monitored through surveys to identify serious pest problems. Only those pest problems posing an immediate threat to tree health are treated with pesticides (e.g., emerald ash borer, drippy blight of red oak, European elm scale on American elms). To learn more, visit Emerald Ash Borer and Other Pests | City of Boulder.
- Commercial Tree Program: Boulder Forestry monitors and maintains public trees and the hardscapes around those trees (e.g., tree grates) in commercial areas.
- Tree Risk Assessments: Larger diameter trees in city parks and public street rights-of-way are surveyed routinely to look for structural defects. Trees posing a risk to public safety are either pruned or removed and replaced if the risk cannot be mitigated through pruning.
- Development Review, Tree Protection, and Mitigation: Boulder Forestry reviews development plans and provides construction oversight for private and city projects to ensure compliance with city tree protection codes. Staff meet with planners, architects and developers to minimize impacts to public trees; when public trees are removed or damaged staff will appraise public trees and assess mitigation which is used to plant new public trees.
- Emergency Response: Boulder Forestry coordinates emergency response activities to eliminate tree hazards (e.g., downed trees, large broken hanging branches in public trees) due to wind or snowstorms, or other emergency events.
- Service Requests: Boulder Forestry responds to over 650 public tree requests annually from the public and other city work groups. To report a Public Tree Issue: Report Issues - City of Boulder.
- Arborist Licensing: Boulder Forestry works cooperatively with Planning and Development Services to license all tree care professionals working on both public and private trees to help ensure safe, quality tree care practices are used.
- Urban Wood Utilization: Logs and chips generated from Boulder Forestry operations are brought to the Forestry log yard. Mulch is available free to the public and firewood permits are available through Open Space and Mountain Parks (Firewood Program | City of Boulder).
- Communication, Notification, and Education / Outreach: Boulder Forestry participates in annual city outreach events. These, along with educational materials, meetings, city website postings, and mailers allow for regular communication with community members.