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TEP's $5 tree program gains momentum after pandemic

By: Perla Shaheen

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TEP’s Trees for You program helps Tucsonans save money, save energy, and save the earth.

“It helps with CO2 reductions, trees in general have so many different benefits,” said Alyssa Moore, TEP Program Coordinator.

Any TEP customer can go onto their website and order three trees for $5 each. There are around 10 species to choose from.

“The public is getting trees at a price that’s unheard of even for us,” said Debbie Mounce, Manager at Harlow Gardens.

Harlow Gardens is one of five local nurseries that participate in the program.

“The grower sends us the trees every Thursday," Mounce said "So we get a list of names and what trees they’d like to have. And when they come in, we get their information and go get their trees for them.”

Mounce says they received their largest order to date when the program kicked off in September. Tucsonans ordered almost 400 trees in one week.

“It’s wonderful to see people are planting more trees because it’s helpful for a lot of different reasons,” Mounce said.

And that’s just at Harlow Gardens, TEP says overall they received more than 1,000 orders in the first two weeks. Those numbers are great, but if all 438,000 TEP customers participated, they would plant more than 1.3 million trees in a year. This would quickly surpass the City’s goal to plant one million trees by 2030.

Where to pick up your trees after applying online: