Huntington Beach group seeks to plant 50 trees for Central Park’s 50th anniversary

At about 350 acres, Huntington Central Park is the largest municipally owned park in Orange County.

It’s about to get a bit greener in 2024.

In correlation with Central Park’s 50th anniversary, Huntington Beach Tree Society volunteers are seeking to plant 50 new trees in three groves of the park.

“We thought, ‘What better birthday present can you give a park than new trees?’” said Steve Engel, who largely works in the park as part of the Secret Garden team and is spearheading the campaign.

The trees are relatively pricey — Engel said they will run about $1,000 each, including planting — so the nonprofit is looking for donations to help complete the project.

The new trees are expected to be California natives, such as sycamores and oaks. Engel said he’s close to procuring the first group to be planted, 10 endangered Torrey pine trees, from a local nursery.

“We have some in Central Park already,” he said. “They seem to do very well here, and we need more native trees and plants to help the birds and the butterflies, the wildlife.”

A Nature Plateau in Central Park East is set to be the site where Torrey pine trees will be planted.

(Courtesy of Steve Engel)

Those pines will go in the first grove, in an area he calls the Nature Plateau. Two other groves of 20 trees each have yet to be planted at the other sites, all of which are in Central Park East and approved by the city’s parks and recreation department.

The other sites are a big meadow area, often used for the city’s Civil War reenactments each year, where the plan is for oaks and sycamores to be planted. The third area, toward the Slater Avenue parking lot, would have flowering trees that would add color to the park.

“We’ve lost probably hundreds of trees over the years,” Engel said. “As of right now, West Coast Arborists do the big-tree trimming for us, and they said there’s a vacancy of over 500 trees in the park right now, in their estimation.”

The new year is shaping up to be a big one for Central Park overall, as the city is planning a “Huntington Beach Jubilee” where each month different areas of Central Park will be celebrated. There will also be celebrations for City Hall and Edison Park, which also turn 50 in 2024, as well as the Boy Scout log cabin at Lake Park that’s turning 100.

Huntington Beach community and library services director Ashley Wysocki said facilities and events manager Chris Cole and his team are developing the schedule for the Jubilee. As for the 50 Trees for 50 Years, those will factor into a California Arbor Week celebration in March.

“The city obviously supports more trees in the park,” Wysocki said. “We know that Central Park is a serene space in Huntington where you kind of forget that you’re in a beach town. With this being the city’s largest regional park, we know just how valuable that space is for people to get away and use it in all of the different capacities that they would use a park. Trees are inherent to the park space, so we’re really excited to see this vision for 50 trees come to life.”

A second grove site in Central Park is set to have trees planted as part of the project.

(Courtesy of Steve Engel)

Huntington Beach Tree Society President Jean Nagy said procuring the trees will be important in addition to making sure they have proper irrigation.

“A tree takes about two years of care before it can really go out on its own when you plant it in a new spot,” she said. “Please call us if you’re willing to hand-water trees in the park.”

Engel said those interested can donate or sponsor the 50 Trees project by visiting HBTrees.org, and there is a QR code available online. Checks can also be mailed to P.O. Box 1269, Sunset Beach, CA, 90742.

He said he hopes to have all 50 trees planted by the end of 2024, calling it a good goal.

“We’ve all been working to get more trees in the park,” Engel said. “We’ve kind of reached the point where there’s not a lot of financing for it. We consider trees our infrastructure, but there’s so many other things that are vying for city dollars that trees get pushed down on the list. We’re trying to think of ways that we can come up with funding, through sponsorship and donations, to be able to bring more trees and plants in.”