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Salt Lake City’s urban forest, containing over 90,000 trees growing along city streets and in parks and natural areas, is a legacy from the first residents of Salt Lake City to those who live and visit here today. This valley’s first visitors and residents found a harsh and arid landscape and planted and cared for trees to improve their environment. Since then, the generations that have come after have enjoyed the lasting benefits of an established urban forest. From cooling shade to inspiring beauty, Salt Lake City’s urban tree canopy cleans our air, quiets urban noise, and calms our valley winds and our minds.

The existing urban forest is a testament to the effort from past generations to care for and water trees in an environment where they don’t naturally grow. Salt Lake City’s leaders are unveiling the “Keep Your Cool” campaign and asking the current city residents to come together and continue the legacy of ensuring the trees that make up the city’s canopy receive enough water to thrive so future generations can enjoy a healthy, vibrant urban forest.

Keep Your Cool is an outreach effort to empower the City’s residents to regain ownership of the larger urban forest by caring for and watering one small piece of that forest – the tree of trees on the park strip adjacent to their home. By intentionally providing water for their park strip tree, each resident is making the city a better place to live, work, and play. Water trees!

The City’s trees and tree canopy are a smart use of our precious and limited water resources. The investment is returned in a healthier environment for people and wildlife. The effort put into smartly using limited water for trees is quickly repaid with reduced temperatures, utility costs, and improvements to human health.

Join the Salt Lake City Urban Forest legacy by caring for each tree in the City’s forest and Keep Your Cool!