Atlanta’s tree guardians: volunteers boost urban greenery’s health this weekend

ATLANTA — As metro Atlanta braces for a hot weekend, a group of dedicated volunteers is stepping up to ensure the city’s trees continue to thrive.

Trees Atlanta, an organization focused on maintaining and expanding the urban tree canopy, will be hard at work across The A this weekend.

Michael Lupsha from Trees Atlanta emphasized the importance of their efforts.

“So there’s many benefits that trees offer. You know why we were planting throughout the city of Atlanta. We’re looking to increase shade for a lot of the neighborhoods in the city. They have experienced tree loss over the years,” he said.

Summer poses a critical challenge for urban trees due to heat and dry weather conditions, which can stress the trees, reduce their growth, and increase their susceptibility to diseases.

Lee Charette, a senior lead with Trees Atlanta, detailed the challenges during a live interview from Legacy Park in DeKalb County.

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“The first year for the trees is kind of stressful in general. In your more urban settings, you have that reflective heat coming off of all of the buildings,” Charette said.

Caring for urban trees involves meticulous maintenance routines.

“We’re trying to hit them every two weeks. So we go and we water each tree, and then we do other maintenance as needed,” Charette explained.

The task includes more than just watering.

“We’ll stake, and then we try to keep a nice, mulched berm around each tree, which helps insulate them in extreme heat and cold and also helps retain moisture,” Charette said.

Last planting season, Trees Atlanta successfully planted more than 4,000 trees across metro Atlanta.

This fall and spring, they aim to plant even more, ensuring that Atlanta’s tree canopy continues to grow and provide essential benefits to urban neighborhoods.

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