Branching Out: A Walk Through Piedmont’s Trees

There was an excellent turnout of our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays walkers last Wednesday morning at the Exedra for our weekly walk. Forty-five walkers and four K-9 best friends were on hand to revisit some of Piedmont’s parks and see some of our public space treasurers.

The Piedmont Heritage Tree Program was created in 2018 by the City Council based on a recommendation from the Park Commission. Over 30 trees have been designated as Piedmont’s "Heritage Trees." The intent of the program is to: recognize noteworthy, distinctive trees in Piedmont city parks or open spaces, encourage residents to visit city parks and open spaces, and promote the study of nature.

Walker and Park Commissioner Jack F shared that the commission has been working on getting signage for the existing Heritage Trees for four years. The cost of these markers has been approved and is now in the City’s budget. It has been said that the signs will be placed at the trees by Arbor Day in April.

In 2023 the Wednesday walkers proposed that the mulberry trees in front of the Piedmont Play School at Hampton Park to be a Heritage Tree. With the help of the school’s tots, who also proposed them, we won. In 2024 we were again winners with a grove of eucalyptus trees in lower Piedmont Park. However, our submission did not make it to the podium last year. But 2026 is new year and another chance. Submissions are due on March 20^th, and the winners will be announced before Arbor Day on April 23^rd. We would to go see some past winners and consider what we would propose this year.

Seeing our first Heritage Trees was easy. The grove of ten Highland poplars that surrounds the Exedra Plaza are Heritage Trees. They are a hybrid of two North American plain poplars that are native to the northern hemisphere. We went up to the Community Hall parking lot and stopped midway down it to view a community favorite that is not covered with lights at this time of year. It is the Coast Redwood Heritage Tree that serves as Piedmont’s holiday tree. The species is native to the fog belt from southwest Oregon to the central California coast.

We went up to and down the lovely Highland Guilford Steps, which was a 2023 City project. It was supported by the Piedmont Beautification Foundation and creates a grand entrance to the Piedmont Park’s Cherry Walk and Tea House. Down the steps we found other Heritage Trees. Japanese maples are native to Japan, Korea, China, eastern Mongolia, and southeast Russia and a group of Akebono cherries are from Japan. In front of the Community Hall is a Yulan magnolia. It is native to central and eastern China, is deciduous, and produces stunning white flowers in the spring which had already replaced by large green leaves.

We walked past the Community Hall to a large, twisting Coast live oak that has been used for family photos for decades. It is also a Heritage Tree and provided a good setting for our group photo. Continuing to the tot lot we found a Coast live oak grouping behind the Exedra. These trees are native to California's central valleys, as far north as Mendocino County, and as far south as northern Baja California in Mexico.

We then made our way up Highland Avenue to Vista Avenue and the City Hall where there is a group of Evergreen dogwoods at its entrance. These Heritage Trees are native to Bhutan and China on the Himalayas’ eastern edge.

Then it was down Vista and Bonita Avenues, past the new pool that we will get to visit on March 25^th with Recreation Director Chelle Putzer. We got to Hillside Avenue and stopped in the front of the Recreation Center. The palm tree at its left was a Recreation staff and Hillside Pre-school students’ 2023 winner. These trees are also known as Canary Island date palms or pineapple palms. They are native to the Canary Islands off the coast of Northwestern Africa. Jim Kellogg said this is a popular palm species because its trunk doesn’t grow large and the canopy of palms at its top have a uniform shape.

We continued up Hillside Avenue to Blair Avenue and down it to the entrance of Dracena Park. Park Commissioner Jack Fischrup guided us to see four more Heritage Trees. There were another mature Coastal Live Oak, a California Buckeye, a native Bigleaf Maple, and a grove of six dawn redwoods that are located in back of the park which is on the site of Walter Blair’s 1850s quarry.

Along the park’s upper path, we stopped at Storyteller Bridge which crosses the park’s ravine. Max Becker told us about how his younger brother rebuilt the bridge with family, City, and community support as an impressive Eagle Scout project.

We emerged from the park on Park Way and walked down to a dogleg turn in the road where the street becomes Monticello Avenue. Sherry Jacobs said Park Way should be renamed Magnolia Avenue because there are so many magnolias on it and none on Magnolia.

At the foot of Park is a hidden path to Artuna Avenue and the park. We went down it and back into the park to see the Dawn redwoods. These trees were present in California about one million years ago and were thought to be extinct but were rediscovered in central China in 1948. Today, they are making a come-back and are one of only three existing redwood species – the Coastal Redwood, Giant Sequoia, and Dawn Redwood. We walked the park’s lower loop to have a closer look at the deciduous Dawn redwoods.

From the park’s little people play area we looked down to bottom of the park at the set of Southern magnolias with their wonderfully exposed roots that we had submitted last year to be a Heritage Tree. The tree is native to the southeastern United States.

We then climbed a set stairs near the play area to El Cerrito Avenue and climbed some more to Blair Avenue. It was noted that Walter Blair and his brother are credited with introducing Eucalyptus trees to the Piedmont area. He planted them as a boundary between what is now Mountain View Cemetery and Piedmont, stretching from Moraga Road to Montclair. The trees were planted around the time of Blair's dairy in the 1860s to 1870s and were known locally as "Blair's Gum Trees." These trees were removed in 1936 to accommodate street widening.

We had planned on seeing more Heritage Trees on streets to the south, but the morning had gone by quickly and it was time to make our return to the Exedra via Carmel, Oakland, and Highland Avenues. We had seen a set of beautiful trees. And there were more to see next week when we could also make a hard decision on a Piedmont tree that we would submit as our 2026 Heritage Tree candidate.