Small Team, Big Impact: Overcoming Heavy Clay and Tight Utilities to Green F and G Streets

Sometimes the most rewarding plantings are the ones that demand the most elbow grease.

On Sunday, September 27, a dedicated crew of three CityTrees board members joined forces with family volunteers in Redwood City to fulfill a longstanding community request: bringing substantial new shade trees to residents along F and G Streets who have been eager to green their parkways.

Shovels Over Augers: Navigating Underground Utilities

While many large plantings rely on power augers to break ground quickly, this site required an old-school, precision approach. With active gas and utility lines running close to the planting zones, safety was the top priority. The team had to ditch the machinery and dig both massive 24-inch box holes entirely by hand.

Over the course of three demanding hours, the crew tackled some classic Bay Area planting challenges:

• Clearing out hidden rock layers and cutting through stubborn landscape fabric buried below the surface.
• Chipping through notoriously dense, compacted Redwood City clay soil inch by inch to ensure proper planting depth and wide root wells.
• Hand-shaping the holes to ensure the root flares would sit slightly above grade for optimal root health and drainage.

Two Standout Trees for the Canopy

The physical effort paid off the moment the two boxed specimens were lowered into place:

• 7-Foot Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba): Known for its resilient nature, unique fan-shaped foliage, and stunning autumn gold display, this tree will bring vibrant seasonal interest and enduring canopy cover to the streetscape.
• 13-Foot Graves Oak (Quercus gravesii): A sturdy, drought-hardy oak with exceptional climate resilience and handsome fall color, providing immediate vertical presence and long-term habitat value.

Growing Together with Neighborhood Stewards

These two substantial additions immediately anchor and fill in the neighborhood street canopy, turning a previously bare stretch of parkway into a greener, cooler, and more welcoming corridor. Most importantly, projects like this succeed because of engaged neighbors—a huge thank you goes out to the local homeowners for their advocacy, hospitality, and commitment to stewarding these trees as they take root.