Project Canopy

Project Canopy is the club’s  initiative to plant native and flowering trees in public green spaces and schools in the City of Coral Gables.  This project encourages our youth and residents to be stewards of the earth and good gardeners, tending and watering their young trees.  Trees and plants that encourage our native wildlife and pollinators to visit are a focus for the Coral Gables Garden Club.

Project  Canopy's new initiative will be supporting the City of Coral Gables plan to install a microforest on the land north of Coral Way on the Country Club Prado. Microforests are small, dense patches of forest plants native to the location of the forest. These tiny forests are increasingly being used as a climate change solution. Below is an example of a microforest. Photo by Witney Tree Keepers.

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

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

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

Thank you for your support!

 

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

– Chinese proverb

In honor of...

Sallye Garrigan Jude

The Coral Gables Garden Club members voted unanimously to dedicate "Project Canopy" to our dear departed member, Sallye Jude.

The City of Coral Gables honored the Coral Gables Garden Club and Sallye Jude for her environmental work by proclaiming September 22nd, 2020, Project Canopy Day.

Sallye, who joined the garden club in 1983, had a long history of promoting environmental causes in South Florida. Sallye was a member of the Sierra Club, a Fellow at Fairchild Botanic Garden, a Board member of the Fern and Exotic Plant Society, the South Florida Palm Society, and the Tropical Flowering Tree Society. Plus, she had been a major supporter of the Royal Poinciana Fiesta for many years, which celebrates our magnificent Royal Poinciana tree. Her love and interest in trees are well known throughout the South Florida and Coral Gables communities.

It is with the deepest admiration that this project is dedicated to her.

She was our "Johnny Appleseed!"