Blog
Check back regularly for the latest Cool Boulder Campaign news.
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2023 Themes
January:
New Year Kick-off & Biodiversity
February:
Garden and Habitat Planning
March:
Soil Health and Regenerative Practices
April:
Tree Planting & Tree Care
May:
Biodiverse Places and Spaces
June:
Drought & Water Use
July:
Community Heat Impacts & Mitigation Strategies
August:
Wildfire Resilient Landscapes
September:
Pollinators & Insects
October:
Harvest / Regenerative Agriculture
November:
Seeds – Adaptations & Propagation Methods
December:
Off-Season Yard Care / Compost as a Climate Resource
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Take Action: Propagate Trees!
Feeling down about climate change, wanting to do something, but not sure what? Consider propagating trees and giving them away!
PLAY Boulder & City of Boulder Forestry’s Fall ‘23 Tree Sale is Here!
City of Boulder Forestry, the PLAY Boulder Foundation and Cool Boulder are committed to increasing the urban canopy in Boulder and doing our part to cool the city. You can help add to the urban canopy by planting a tree on your Boulder property! Help fight climate change in your backyard!
Easy Ways to Take Action!
Looking for easy ways to take action on climate change or biodiversity loss? Check out these simple actions you can take to get involved!
Actions for Earth Day & Arbor Day 2023
Both Earth Day 2023 and Arbor Day 2023 are steadily approaching - what what are they? Click here to find out more about these two important environmental days of celebration, action, and advocacy, as well as the opportunities for action offered by Cool Boulder, its partners, and more!
Healthy Soils - 101
Good stewardship of soil–at your home, school, or workplace–is one of the most important things you can do for the planet!
Opportunities in March & April
Looking for opportunities to act on climate change? Cool Boulder’s themes for March and April are Soil Health & Regenerative Practices and Trees, respectively. Read on to see how you can get involved and engage with these topics, or check out our events calendar for even more opportunities!
Registration is Open for PLAY Boulder’s Tree Tender Training Tuesdays Next Month!
Tree Tenders are given the tools to plant and care for trees in their own communities. The specialized trainings involve learning all about tree identification, tree biology, debunking common tree myths, tree planting and irrigation, tree care and pruning, and community organizing in this multi-day workshop hosted by the PLAY Boulder Foundation's Tree Trust.
You will be joining a network of tree lovers with the goal of growing the urban tree canopy in the City of Boulder. Plus, all Tree Tenders will receive a tee shirt, field notebook, badge, and certificate, and at the end of the third day, everyone will help plant a tree!
Winter Tree Care Tips and Information about the PLAY Boulder Foundation’s Tree Trust
Learn about best practices for tree care during winter in Colorado, to keep trees healthy and happy all year long!
Nature-based Climate Solutions & the Cool Boulder Campaign
We can make our community more resilient and equitable by tapping into the natural systems and processes that regulate our climate, which nature has developed over a timespan much longer than humans! This approach is called nature-based climate solutions (NbCS).
Boulder Urban Heat Mapping: A Story Map
Boulder was one of 14 cities this year to participate in this international event in coordination with NOAA and CAPA Strategies, in which community scientist volunteers drove designated routes to collect temperature and humidity data. Those community scientists are the first members of the Boulder Heat Watch Team, who will be working with Cool Boulder to continue to track heat in the Boulder community. This data will hopefully be used to help inform nature-based cooling solutions like tree planting.
Look No Further Than Boulder’s Backyards for Your Fall Apple Picking
Boulder is basically one big urban apple orchard with an abundance of fresh, healthy, affordable fruit for all!
Are You A Fruit Rescuer? Be A Harvest Leader!
Community Fruit Rescue is a nonprofit organization that harvests the surplus and often overlooked fruit growing throughout the Boulder area to help reduce food waste, prevent conflicts with wildlife like black bears, build resilient communities, and direct fresh food to the people who need it. The harvested fruit is then donated to volunteer pickers, local food pantries, homeless shelters, schools, and even to the rescued animals at the Wild Animal Sanctuary.
Keep Your Fruit Trees Healthy While Protecting Wildlife
Have you ever observed the abundance of apples growing throughout Boulder? There’s a reason why this surplus of fruit exists today. Learn how to care for fruit trees and protect Boulder’s wildlife.
Trees for a Changing Climate & Resilient Urban Forest
If you look at old photos of Colorado Front Range cities, you won’t see many trees. And if you look up native trees of Colorado, you will find a lot of mountain-growing conifers and just a few deciduous trees that grow along streams. Learn about the history of tree stewardship in the Front Range.
Tree Planting Instructions
Boulder's dry climate and generally poor, alkaline soils present some difficulties for trees. Our soils are usually a shallow layer of compact clay with rocks, over a very dense clay subsoil that is hard for roots to penetrate. Healthy, long-lived urban trees get off to a good start when we pay attention to some tree-planting fundamentals. The following instructions have been shared with over 8,000 trees, which Your Neighborhood Christmas Tree Farm has grown from seed and given away in Boulder over the past 15 years.
The Best Ways To Water Trees In Our Dry, Colorado Climate
If you looked out across the Colorado Front Range hundreds of years ago, you would have seen grassy plains and very few trees. Growing trees in our region is difficult in wet years, let alone in drought years. What can you do during the hot, dry summer to help our leafy friends?
The Superpowers of Trees
We all have superpowers. Every organism, every showing on this planet has something, some unique new purpose that fits perfectly in the constantly changing dance of life in this expanding universe.
Community Heat Mapping
Extreme heat kills more Americans than any other weather event, but not everyone’s risk is the same. Denser urban areas, which typically have a lot of dark surfaces that absorb and hold heat, are much hotter than their surrounding rural and suburban counterparts. This is known as the “urban heat island effect.” Zooming in further, heat is not distributed evenly within these urban heat islands. Oftentimes the effect disproportionately affects marginalized communities.
Boulder County High Schoolers “Tree-plenishing” Our Ecosystems
The Cool Boulder Campaign is thrilled to kick off our 2022 actions by supporting students from five Boulder County high schools—Centaurus, Peak to Peak, Monarch, Boulder, and Fairview—to plant 1,200 trees this Earth Day through a campaign called Tree-Plenish. Tree-Plenish is providing $5 tree saplings to members of the public. Online orders for Eastern Redbud, Blue Spruce, Douglas Fir, and Red Maple saplings can be made through March 30, 2022.