Project Canopy

Project Canopy is the Coral Gables Garden Club’s initiative to expand and strengthen the City’s urban tree canopy by planting native and flowering trees in public spaces and schools throughout Coral Gables. The project also encourages residents and young people to become stewards of the environment by caring for and nurturing the trees they help plant.
 
A special focus of Project Canopy is creating landscapes that support native wildlife and pollinators, while providing shade, beauty, and environmental benefits for our community.
 
The Coral Gables Microforest
 
Project Canopy’s newest initiative is supporting the City of Coral Gables in the creation of a microforest at the highly trafficked entrance to the City at Red Road and Coral Way, on the land north of Coral Way along Country Club Prado.
 
A microforest is a small, densely planted area featuring layers of native trees, shrubs, and other plants. The City’s Greenspace Management Division of Public Works is designing a microforest of approximately 100 native trees and large shrubs, creating a diverse and thriving urban habitat.
 
The project will provide important environmental benefits, including:
  • Cooling and shade for surrounding streets and neighborhoods
  • Improved stormwater management to help reduce flooding
  • Habitat and food sources for birds, butterflies, pollinators, and other wildlife
  • Increased biodiversity within the City’s urban landscape
  • Beauty and enhanced quality of life for residents and visitors
The microforest will also include meandering pathways, benches, and other features designed to create a welcoming passive park where residents can enjoy and learn about native plant habitats.
 
The project supports the City’s goal of maintaining more than 40% tree canopy coverage and preserving its long-standing Tree City USA designation.
 
Construction will be funded through a combination of City resources and private donations, with planting taking place in phases through a partnership of City staff, landscape contractors, and community volunteers.
 
Through Project Canopy, the Coral Gables Garden Club is proud to help cultivate a greener, healthier, and more sustainable future for our community—one tree at a time.

Project Canopy Micro-Forest Initiative
Sponsorship Opportunities

Your support of the Coral Gables Garden Club's Project Canopy Micro-Forest Initiative will help fund the installation of a native micro-forest along Coral Way at Country Club Prado. A micro-forest is a small, densely planted area of native trees and shrubs designed to increase biodiversity and strengthen the urban tree canopy.

Please consider supporting this important community project by selecting a sponsorship level below and mailing a check payable to the Coral Gables Garden Club to:

Alexis Ehrenhaft, Treasurer
2221 Country Club Prado
Coral Gables, FL 33134
Please note "Micro-Forest" in the memo line.

$25,000 Southern Live Oak Sponsors

The Signature Tree of Coral Gables
The magnificent Southern Live Oak is the undisputed monarch of the City's tree canopy. Reaching 50–80 feet tall with branches that can spread more than 100 feet, these iconic trees can live for centuries. Exceptionally wind-resistant and salt-tolerant, they provide abundant shade, wildlife habitat, and enduring beauty for generations.

Coral Gables Garden Club

$10,000 Gumbo Limbo Sponsors

The "Tourist Tree"
Known for its distinctive red, peeling bark that resembles a sunburned visitor, the Gumbo Limbo is one of South Florida's most beloved native trees. Growing up to 40 feet tall, it is remarkably resilient—withstanding hurricanes, drought, and coastal conditions while providing valuable shade and habitat.

Salley Jude Family Foundation

$5,000 Dade County Pine Sponsors

A Florida Native Landmark
The Dade County Pine is a towering native evergreen that can reach heights of 80–100 feet. Once a defining feature of South Florida's landscape, it plays an important role in supporting birds and wildlife while adding year-round beauty to the urban forest.

The Davey Tree Company
Symx Corp

$2,500 Wild Tamarind Sponsors

A Haven for Butterflies and Birds
With its graceful, fern-like foliage, fragrant white blooms, and broad umbrella-shaped canopy, the Wild Tamarind is one of South Florida's most attractive native trees. It serves as a host plant for several native butterfly species while providing shelter and nesting habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson

$1,000 Bay Rum Sponsors

Fragrance Meets Function
The Bay Rum tree is prized for its aromatic leaves, long used to produce the classic bay rum fragrance. This attractive evergreen features glossy foliage, delicate white flowers, and dark berries that provide food for birds while adding year-round interest to the landscape.

$500 Jamaican Caper Sponsors

Small Tree, Big Impact
The hardy Jamaican Caper is a Florida native celebrated for its fragrant white blossoms, striking bronze new growth, and exceptional tolerance of salt, wind, and drought. A favorite of pollinators, it is also the primary host plant for the Florida White Butterfly, making it an important contributor to our local ecosystem.

The City of Coral Gables Microforest

The City’s Greenspace Management division of Public Works is currently designing an exciting new tree canopy enhancement project at the highly trafficked Red Road and Coral Way entrance to the City.
The concept is to create a dense ‘micro-forest’ incorporating a variety of approximately 100 native trees and large shrubs of layered sizes to add to the diversity of the City’s urban tree canopy. Projects such as this help to realize the strategic plan of maintaining the City’s tree canopy coverage to over 40% in perpetuity, and maintain the prestigious  ‘Tree City USA’ status, which the City has maintained over 40 years.
 
When this project is built, visitors driving into the City from the major West to East Coral Way corridor will experience an urban forest rich with environmental benefits and beauty. The micro-forest will accomplish increasing shade for cooling pavements and homes, adding foliage for water management preventing street flooding, adding wildlife habit for birds, pollinators, and other wildlife, and enhancing aesthetic beauty increasing property values in the neighborhood.
 
The plan will incorporate meandering pathways, benches, and features to create a passive park setting for residents to enjoy.  
The micro forest will be budgeted through a combination of City funds and private donations.  The project construction will utilize both City landscape contractors , staff, and community volunteers working  organized planting events in phases creating opportunities for community engagement throughout the construction. After project completion, the micro forest will function as a passive park for residents to visit and learn about native plant habitat naturally occurring in the region.
 

Coral Gables High School receives forty-five native trees.

This September of 2024, forty-five young native trees were planted through the efforts of the Enviromental Chair of the Coral Gables Garden Club, Vice-Mayor Anderson. Forty-one small gumbo limbos and four mahogany trees are in the high school's parking lot on the east side. Many volunteers came out for this planting, including garden club members, the fire department, the Rotary Club, and the students of the environmental and PACE clubs. We are continuing our legacy of increasing the tree canopy of Coral Gables one planting at a time. Thanks to Principal Balboa and Natacha Lezscano for their coordinated efforts with the club and the Vice- Mayor.

Coral Gables Golf Course was gifted 4 new flowering trees.... 

Thanks to Vice-Mayor Rhonda Anderson's generous contribution  to support tree planting around the Coral Gables Golf Course, an area with insufficient shade, the Coral Gables Garden Club planted 4 new flowering trees.. Given that the course is popular among walkers, the Club saw an opportunity to enhance the landscape by adding flowering trees to complement the existing Silk Floss and Royal Poinciana trees.

In 2023, the Club’s President collaborated with the City's Public Works Department to identify optimal planting locations. Additionally, she contacted homeowners whose properties faced the golf course to ensure their support and approval, as the Club wanted to avoid obstructing views. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with residents expressing enthusiasm for adding 3 Cassia Bakeriana and 1 Cassia Fistula trees, the latter of which Vice-Mayor Anderson rescued and relocated.

The city sourced and planted the 45 gallon trees in the Spring of 2024, ensuring a vibrant display of Summer, Fall, and Spring blooms while providing future shade. To further support this project, the Coral Gables Garden Club donated $3,500 to the City’s Tree Trust Fund, which included Vice-Mayor Anderson’s original donation earmarked for these plantings.

Coral Gables High School was our last school of the 2020-2021 school year to gift native trees. 

Principal Ullivarri and the PTA chose native Mahogany trees, which grace the east side of their athletic fields.

Our tree plantings continue at George Washington Carver Middle School.

G.W. Carver Middle School was the recipient of a native and pollinator garden on Saturday, January 16th, 2021.

 Treemendous Miami’s crew of ten volunteers planted a beautiful native and pollinator garden in honor of Sallye Jude for Project Canopy. Native pines, saw palmetto, wild coffee, red and white stoppers, Simpson stoppers, pigeon plum, gumbo limbo,  firebush, black ironwood are just a few of many plants and trees planted on the S.W. corner of G.W. Carver's campus. 

 It was an impressive effort and the garden is lovely.  It will be used to educate the students on the benefits of using native plants and especially those which aid pollinators.  Many thanks go to Steve Pearson for organizing this on our behalf!

On Dec. 4th, 2020, we planted trees at Ponce De Leon Middle School and Henry S. West Lab K-8.  

Early Friday morning, three large, beautiful Live Oak trees were delivered to Ponce De Leon Middle School, as Principal Herb Penton greeted our members and the truck carrying the trees. Bordering the school’s basketball courts, the installation was seamless thanks to Abel and his assistant Nelson. How heartwarming it was to receive thanks from attending students and staff.

Henry S. West Lab K-8 was next. We were enthusiastically greeted by members of the school’s PTO, Ana Azpúrua Knoll, Maria Martínez, Principal Barbara Pujades-Soto, the teachers, and charming little students of two kindergarten classes.  They all were delighted with their new Cassia Bakeriana trees, and the children especially loved watching the big truck and auger digging the three large holes. We were impressed with how the teachers embraced this planting as an important and fun learning experience for their small charges.

Project-Canopy-Tweet-Ponce

 

 

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

– Chinese proverb
CLICK HERE to support Project Canopy and the Microforest

With your personal tax deductible donation you have the ability to honor or memorialize a friend. Thank you for your support!

Thanks to Our Donors

Thank You to Our Founding Sponsors

$25,000 – Coral Gables Garden Club
$10,000 – Salley Jude Family Foundation
$5,000 – The Davey Tree Company
$5,000 – Symx Corp
$2,929.13 – Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson