San Mateo Park

How to Obtain a Street Tree

Street trees, planted in the sidewalk easement area, are essential to the character of the Park. Please give careful consideration to having a tree(s) if your sidewalk is bare.  Planting wells can be made, even in paved areas.  Perhaps you need another tree to complete an existing stand in front of your house.  Or, do you need a dead or dying tree replaced?    In all of these circumstances, the City and/or the Park Association usually can acquire, plant and cover the costs of such trees.  Please call Board member Sue Lloyd at 347-6871 if you would like a tree.

Watering Your New Street Tree
It is ESSENTIAL that new trees are watered regularly and deeply.  The City and the Park Association provide these trees: your part of the bargain is to water them!  Street trees need to be watered for the first 2 - 3 years to survive until their roots become established and they are able to reach down into the water table.  Properly watered trees will grow much more quickly and vigorously than thirsty ones.  Proper, deep watering also encourages roots to grow downward rather than outward close to the surface, where they cause pavements to heave and trip up pedestrians.

Here’s how to water your new trees.  Maintain the well around the base of the tree that was created when the tree was planted.  Once a week, fill this well with water and let it sink into the ground.  Repeat this procedure 3 – 4 times.  Or, put a hose into the well and let it run (at a rate that fills but doesn’t overflow the well) for 45 minutes to an hour.

 A small investment in watering your new street trees will preserve the investment you and your neighbors made (via dues paid to the Park Association) in providing you with trees.  Better still, your trees will thrive, looking better, growing more quickly, and enhancing your property.

Some reminders (from our top ten list of concerns voiced by Park residents!):
1) Planting in the sidewalk easement area requires a permit from the City.  While there is a lot of latitude for free choice of understory or low plants (as long as you don’t block the pedestrian right of way entirely), such is not the case for trees.  Only certain species (depending on the street and block) will be approved by the City.  If you plant a different tree without a permit, you may be required to remove it. 

2) If you feel you must surface (or resurface) the sidewalk in front of your house, please do so in a way that allows water to permeate through.  Use fine pebble-like material.  (Lyngso, and no doubt others, have some available that do not scatter, and are easy to ride bikes or push strollers over.  You can see this material on the walk in front of the Maybeck designed house – the one with the roof shaped like a thatched cottage – on the north side of Sycamore.)  Or, set bricks and other pavers in sand rather than concrete.  Avoid asphalt and concrete.

Why?  Because our tall, old and heritage size street trees need lots of water – if we pave around them and make rainwater run off into drains, they may not survive.