Austin's attempts to create and maintain an urban canopy to cool and shade our overheated streets will get some recognition this month. Or, more accurately, some of the trees that do the real work on that front will be celebrated soon.
That's right: The Austin Tree of the Year Awards are back.
The awards were created in March 2007 to recognize and celebrate beautiful and healthy trees around the city and ran yearly until 2013. Its founders aspired to provide Austinites with outstanding examples of proper tree selection, care, and placement as well as fostering community support of the city's urban forest.
After an almost 10-year hiatus, the awards have been revived by urban reforestation nonprofit TreeFolks, in partnership with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department and with support from philanthropy group the Still Water Foundation.
Community members and organizations put up 50 trees for the Austin’s 2022 Trees of the Year during a summer-long tree nomination period. Winners will be decided by a community vote during the last week of October, with voters casting ballots in five categories: big tree, small tree, story tree, school tree, and unique tree.
Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on November 5 at the Dottie Jordan Park Tree and Pollinator Festival, 2803 Loyola Ln. Harvest Lumber Company will laser-cut wooden “cookies” to honor the winning trees and nominators in each of the five categories.
The Austin Parks and Recreation Department provided Geospatial Information Systems support and voting site facilitation for the awards, and Page 33 Studio helped with graphic design and logo creation.
