Toronto Trees

Location: Allan Gardens, Gerrard close to Sherbourne
Date photo taken: 18 August 2015

There are several areas in the city where it is possible to visit some truly spectacular trees. In honour of Earth Day, here is a personal favourite. Allan Gardens, along with being home to a beautiful conservatory, also houses over 300 trees. Not bad for a modestly sized urban park.

The City of Toronto has embraced its urban forest and is attempting to grow its tree canopy. Permits are required to remove trees, even, in some cases, on private property, and in the decade between 2008 and 2018, the city invested over $600 million in maintaining and growing its urban forest. City estimates put the overall canopy at approximately 30 percent. Treepedia, a project by MIT's Senseable City Lab, uses a different metric. Rather than measuring the tree cover from above, they take a pedestrian view to measure how many trees can be perceived on city streets. They call their score the Green View Index. By this metric, Toronto scores 19.5%. The lower number likely reflects the relatively large percentage of Toronto trees that grow in parks, ravines and backyards. For comparison, New York has a score of 13.5% and Montreal scores 25.5%.