Trees bring us shade, fruit, and flowers, but they add much more to our lives than we might realize. Research shows that trees do everything from increasing property values to making us feel better. And as the climate warms, trees can also help slow down the manmade changes brought to the planet. Here are six surprising benefits of planting trees.
Dan Lambe is the CEO of the Arbor Day Foundation, the largest nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees.
Benefits of Planting Trees
Trees help remove carbon from the air and create a cooler, safer community. “By planting trees, you also create a natural escape space for you and your neighbors who are walking their dog or trying to find a place to stroll,” says Dan Lambe, CEO of the Arbor Day Foundation. Trees provide many additional benefits, including the following:
1. Trees add value to your home.
A big, shady tree can add $1,000 to $10,000 to the value of your property, depending on the type of tree, according to the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers. A yard full of shady trees can add 10 to 20% to the value of your home and cause it to sell faster, if that’s your goal. So, while money doesn’t grow on trees, trees can put cash in your pocket.
2. Trees absorb greenhouse gases.
When trees make food for themselves via photosynthesis, they absorb carbon dioxide from the air and store it in their wood. Carbon dioxide is one of the gases causing climate change, so planting a few trees in your yard is a small way to fight climate change at home. Lambe says a single mature tree can absorb 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year.
“In this day and age of climate dread, people are asking themselves, what can they do?” says Lambe. “There’s one thing that almost everybody can be a part of, and that is planting trees."
While one tree won’t save the planet, it can offset the carbon dioxide produced by driving 64 miles in a car. Every tree helps, and the benefits add up. An acre of trees absorbs 6 tons of carbon dioxide, enough to offset the greenhouse gas produced by driving a car 16,000 miles.
Dan Lambe, Arbor Day Foundation
In this day and age of climate dread, people are asking themselves, what can they do? There’s one thing that almost everybody can be a part of, and that is planting trees.
3. Trees can lower your power bill.
Planting trees near your home can reduce the need to run your air conditioner by 30% and lower your heating bill by 20 to 50%, says the U.S. Forest Service. Shade from trees keeps your house cooler, so you don’t have to run your air conditioner as much on hot summer days. Trees can also block winter winds that creep into your home through windows and doors.
4. Trees can boost your mental health.
A study from The Nature Conservancy found that time in nature around trees correlated with a drop in anxiety and depression. Studies find urban dwellers have higher levels of stress and depression than people who live in rural areas. The solution for the urban blues? Nature, specifically trees. Just looking at trees lowers blood pressure and muscle tension within five minutes, according to a Texas A&M study.
More studies find that spending time in a natural environment correlates with a reduction in stress and depression. One amazing study found that each additional 10 trees on a city block corresponded with a 1% increase in how healthy residents felt. Simply put, trees make us feel better.
5. Trees increase health.
Neighborhoods with a high tree density rate report 25% lower childhood asthma rates, Lambe says. “Trees filter air pollution particles out of the air we breathe, so they give us cleaner air.” One study found trees prevented 850 deaths from asthma in a single year.
6. Trees make urban areas cooler and safer.
“Trees provide shade, and they cool cities as much as 10°F,” Lambe says. “That can prevent heat-related deaths.” And get this: a Baltimore study found that crime decreased in neighborhoods where there were more trees. One might conclude that there was less crime because wealthier neighborhoods tend to have more trees. The study controlled for that consideration and adjusted their models for a range of socioeconomic factors. Trees still came out as being crime fighters.
How do trees do this? It has long been believed that heat increases aggression. Violent crime is more likely to happen in the summer, according to decades of research from the U.S. Department of Justice. So, trees may lower tempers by lowering temperatures.