Call Queens the ‘Borough of Trees’

Queens has again been crowned the “borough of trees,” after the Parks Department’s 2005-2006 Street Tree Census found that, with 217,111 trees, Queens has the most green in New York.
The number of trees in the borough has also grown 10 percent since the 1995-1996 Census, according to Abigail Lootens, spokesperson for the Parks Department.
A street tree is “any trees along the streets or in a triangle,” explained Lootens. Park trees were not counted in this census.
For the past two summers, “volunteers walked through the streets, counted and logged the types of trees,” Lootens explained. The helpers noted important information about each tree, such as species, size, location and condition.
Nearly 90 percent of trees in Queens were rated as being in “good to excellent condition.” To assess this, volunteers looked at leaf health, branch structure, and trunk condition.
Queens also has the largest population of Norway maple trees in the city, said Lootens, at 18 percent of the borough’s total population. The London planetree is 14 percent of the tree population in Queens, at a close second to the Norway maple.
Queens is also home to Pine oak, Callery pear and Honeylocust trees.
In total, New York City is 100,000 street trees greener than 10 years ago, and under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC2030, one million more trees are scheduled to be planted by the city.