Easy to use step-by-step guides on sustainable landscaping resources:

• Check out Sudbury Valley Trustees’ Eco-Landscaping resources.
• Take a look at Concord’s Sustainable Landscape Handbook for an overview.
• Check out the National Wildlife Federation to learn how you can create a welcoming haven for local wildlife. Turning your yard, balcony container garden, schoolyard, work landscape, or roadside greenspace into a Certified Wildlife Habitat® is fun, easy, and can make a lasting difference for wildlife.

These resources can help you find a local professional with a focus on sustainable landscaping practices:

• Tower Hill Botanical Garden is a hub that can connect you to local sustainable designers and builders.
• Ecological Landscape Alliance (ELA) provides access to webinars, events, resources and connections to local professionals.
• Massachusetts Horticulture Society has online resources and lists of local events.
• American Society of Landscape Architects and Boston Society of Landscape Architects have databases to search for landscape designers in the area, as well as sustainability articles.
• Grow Native Massachusetts  provides a list of landscapers with a sustainability mission.

Want to plant a tree, we recommend these steps suggested:

• Select the right tree.  Try ArborDay Foundation's Choosing the Right Tree online tool. Or consult, Planting for Resilience: Selecting Urban Trees in Massachusetts, published by UMass-Amherst Department of Environmental Conservation, which provides detailed suggestions on species that will be best suited for a new climate. Looking for a detailed guide? The US Forest Service's Urban Watershed Forestry Manual, Part 3: Urban Tree Planting Guide, has extensive information. And additional information is available from Mass DCR's 2-page information sheet.
• Select the right spot. There's no better tool for determining where to plant a tree than iTree Landscape.
• Use proper planting technique. The Tree Owner's Manual (yes, an owner's manual!) provides extensive instructions.  Available in Spanish too. Massachusetts' Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has a 2 page Tree Planting Guide. 
• Care for your new tree. For the basics on how to water, mulch, and prune, head over to the DCR. More detailed information can be found in the Tree Owner's Manual. The Spanish version is here. Proper pruning techniques are available from the US Forest Service's How to Prune handbook.       
• If you’d like to set up a food forest, contact the Boston Food Forest Coalition for advice. 

1. How much carbon dioxide can a tree remove from the atmosphere? Over the course of a year, a young tree can remove approximately 6 kilograms/13 pounds of atmospheric carbon dioxide. By the time that tree is ten years old, the amount of carbon dioxide it can absorb jumps to 22 kilograms/48 pounds. Within 50 years, a mature tree has removed almost one ton of carbon dioxide.

2. How do trees help cool the atmosphere? Trees cool the atmosphere and ground around them through transpiration, the process through which plants absorb water through their roots and release water vapor through the pores of their leaves. On a sunny day, a mature tree can transpire up to 100 liters of water and in the process convert 70 kilowatt-hours of solar energy into latent heat held in water vapor. Without tree cover, the soil absorbs heat instead. This contributes to a rise in temperature not only of the ground but also the surrounding atmosphere.

3. What is a Food Forest? A food forest is an edible forest garden. A combination of tall trees, small trees, shrubs, herbs, ground covers, and some annual crops, it’s designed so that each plant receives sufficient sun exposure and requires minimal care as it enriches itself with organic matter. Far from a new idea, this is a time-tested system of farming found all over the world, perhaps most famously in the Amazon rainforest. More local, recent (and smaller!) examples include the  Egleston Community Orchard and the Food Forest at the Boston Nature Center.