Park District Plans Major Tree Plantings Across City

The Chicago Park District is gearing up to start planting 280 crabapple trees in Grant Park beginning the first week of October as part of its citywide program to plant or replace trees in areas that need them the most. An additional 1,000 trees will be planted across the city this fall.

"The presence of trees is essential to the overall health of our environment," said Chicago Park District Superintendent Tim Mitchell. "It is important that we not only preserve of city’s existing tree population but continue to invest in reforestation, particularly in tree-deficient communities."

The trees that will be planted in Grant Park, along with 600 lilac shrubs, will be planted in Hutchinson Field, which is bounded by Lake Shore Drive on the east, Columbus Drive on the west, Arvey Field on the south and Balbo on the north. The total cost of the fall plantings in Grant Park is an estimated $250,000.

The Grant Park planting is a restoration project for this park since many of the crabapples and shrubs that were planted in the early 1990s died from disease. The tree and shrub plantings are expected to be complete by mid-November.

Park district officials plan to plant a total of $2 million worth of trees and shrubs across the city this fall and next spring as part of its Green Action Urban Reforestation Initiative. The fall planting is expected to begin in mid-October and end in mid-November.

The reforestation effort is the result of a study performed by the Chicago Department of Planning, which evaluated the entire city to identify parks and communities with the lowest number of trees or tree canopy, which is the shady area that tree branches create. These tree-deficient communities contribute to Urban Heat Island effect.

Urban Heat Island effect increases the average temperature within any densely populated urban area, which can then lead to an increase in the energy used to cool down structures within a city. This cause and effect cycle generally leads to hotter cities with a higher energy usage and higher air pollution within city limits.

The Chicago Park District is working with the City of Chicago to combat this cycle by increasing the number of trees and types of tree species planted in the city. The presence of trees reduces the average temperature as well as the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

The Chicago Park District has partnered with the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development to use urban heat island indicator data to determine the neighborhoods and parks which have a low percentage of tree canopy and a high percentage of paved surfaces. The park district will use these maps to plan where a portion of trees will be planted.

The park district plans to continue its reforestation program next spring by planting 2,000 to 3,000 trees across the city in a variety of parks, including Douglas Park, which lost hundreds of trees in a thunderstorm last summer.