City Plants
Los Angeles, California, United States · Government program · Local · since 2006
Los Angeles public-private partnership delivering free yard trees and planting street trees in low-canopy neighborhoods
About
City Plants is the City of Los Angeles's tree planting partnership, housed in the city's Board of Public Works and funded largely by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, with a nonprofit arm administered through the fiscal sponsor Community Partners. It continues the 2006 Million Trees LA initiative and coordinates six nonprofit partners (including TreePeople, North East Trees and the LA Conservation Corps) to deliver up to seven free shade trees to any city resident's door, run roughly 200 community tree adoption events a year, and plant street trees in parkways with a focus on neighborhoods with the least canopy. It also runs a Tree Ambassador training program and the Commonwealth Nursery in Griffith Park.
What they run
Free five-gallon shade and fruit trees for City of Los Angeles residents, delivered to the door (up to seven per address, 30+ water-efficient species) or picked up at community tree adoption events held nearly 200 times a year.
Plants trees in the parkway in front of homes, apartments, businesses and schools on request, with neighborhood-scale plantings in low-canopy areas and three years of establishment care.
Paid community training program whose cohorts canvass neighborhoods, sign up residents for trees and lead plantings; the first cohort ran September 2021 to April 2022.
Revived city nursery in Griffith Park growing trees for City Plants' plantings and giveaways.
Trees by type of work
| Activity | Trees | Years |
|---|---|---|
| 🎁 Tree adoption & giveaways | 20,000 | 2020 |
| 🏙️ Urban forestry | 3,000 | 2020 |
Only figures attached to a named program count here. Organization-wide totals sit in the table below.
The numbers
| Metric | Year | Value | Program | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trees planted | 2026 | 20,000 | Organization-wide | Self-reported | sourceOur Story page: 'We plant and distribute 20,000 trees a year' (accessed Nov 2026; a standing annual figure combining street trees planted and yard trees given away) |
| Volunteers engaged | 2020 | 500 | Organization-wide | Self-reported | sourceOur Impact page: worked with 'over 500 volunteers' at tree planting events in 2020 |
| Trees distributed | 2020 | 20,000 | Yard Trees (free tree delivery and adoptions) | Self-reported | sourceOur Impact page, '2020: A Year for the Books': 'over 20,000 yard trees' distributed and delivered to Angelenos, through 'over 200 community tree adoption events' |
| Trees planted | 2020 | 3,000 | Street Trees | Self-reported | sourceOur Impact page: 'over 3,000 new street trees' planted throughout Los Angeles in 2020, plus 'nearly 500 trees in parks' (not included in this value) |
How they report
What earned it
- 5/20 Publishes annual tree figures: 1 year of annual figures on record (5 points each, up to 4 years)
- 15/15 Figures are recent: Latest annual figure is for 2026
- 10/10 Every figure has a public source: 4 of 4 figures link to a source
- 0/15 Publishes financials or cost per tree: No financial figure recorded
- 0/15 Reports survival or monitoring: No survival or monitoring figure
- 0/10 Independently verified figure: All figures are the organization's own
- 10/10 Breaks figures down by program: Figures attached to named programs
- 5/5 Reports volunteers or events: Volunteer figures on record
- Latest annual figure
- 20,000 trees in 2026
- Compare
- Put City Plants next to others · method
Upcoming events
None listed here right now. Send us their calendar feed. Check their calendar.