On a sunny afternoon, Wednesday, Jan. 29, crowds of students curiously walked by yellow caution tape blocking off a portion of the Alumni Amphitheater. Landscape services were in the area to begin the first phase of Sonoma State University’s new sustainability program by planting young trees to replace aging trees that posed a potential hazard. 

This is all part of the university’s new one-for-one tree program, initiated by Landscape Manager Allan J. Goff.  As Goff stated, “the spirit of the ‘one for one’ program is that when a tree is removed from the over 7,000 tree campus inventory for any reason, it will be replaced with a new tree of appropriate species in the same or nearby location on campus.” Goff successfully incubated this program at Pepperdine University, in Malibu, before arriving at Sonoma State in mid-2019. 

According to Goff, in early 2019, the University removed several Pine and Cottonwood trees located near the Alumni Amphitheater for safety reasons. In turn, SSU planted thirteen flowering plum trees and eight incense cedar trees around the area.

Luke Crawford, of the landscape management team, says the plum trees will grow to about 30 feet in height once they are mature, with the cedar trees ranging from 60-80 feet tall. Phase one is expected to be completed in the next two weeks. Although pedestrian flow was redirected last Wednesday morning, as landscape closed down the walkway near the theatre, Crawford says “we shouldn’t have to worry much about the walkway being closed down again.” Crawford noted that further construction will most-likely take place during the least busy parts of the day to minimize disturbance. 

The one-for-one tree program is just a single part of the landscape team’s proactive tree care program, which aims to satisfy a plethora of criteria, including trimming or removing trees in critical condition, as well as maintaining trees that interfere with buildings, sidewalks, roadways or exterior light illumination. Regular site inspections to monitor any disease or growth inhibitor issues are currently underway. 

The landscape team plans to implement a progressive annual trimming program consisting of light proactive canopy trimming on specific species once all safety issues are addressed. Goff states that they hope to assess all the trees no later than 2023. Once all the trees are assessed and monitored, the landscape team plans to not only continue the one-for-one replacement program but also plant additional trees around campus for environmental reasons as well as for student enjoyment. Goff states that we can expect to see future tree planting projects in select parking lots, around the lake, and other core campus areas.