Philadelphia approved street tree list: small, medium, large and columnar

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. It is also not planting advice and it does not say which tree suits a given site. The city’s Street Tree Management Division is the contact for questions. The list is copied here as names only. The city’s PDF also has a column of optional cultivars, which this page leaves out.

What the list is

The PDF is headed Approved Street Trees. It is grouped by mature size: small trees under 30 feet, described as suitable below primary wires, medium trees of 30 to 45 feet, large trees over 45 feet, and a last group of narrow form (columnar) trees. The PDF carries no printed date. The file name on the city’s site is labelled rev 05 2023, so that label is the only date the city gives. The footer says the list is “not exhaustive”, and says the same of the cultivars. An asterisk on three entries means single stem only.

The list has 36 small, 24 medium and 39 large entries, and 18 columnar entries, counted by the rows printed in the PDF. A row can be a hybrid group or a cultivar name, so the counts are of rows and not of species.

Small trees, under 30 feet

Medium trees, 30 to 45 feet

Large trees, over 45 feet

Columnar, narrow form trees

The last group in the PDF is headed Narrow form trees. The common names below are printed as published, and some are cultivar names that the city lists as the entry itself.

How a street tree is requested

The city’s Get a street tree page says Parks and Recreation can help property owners get a free street tree planted in front of a home, business or other property. It says residential and commercial property owners in Philadelphia can get street trees, and that requests go to the Street Tree Office. It gives the usual planting seasons as mid-April to mid-June and mid-October to mid-November.

The same page describes a faster route at the owner’s expense. The owner hires a certified arborist who is on the city’s Qualified Contractor list, obtains a tree planting permit from the Street Tree Management Office, selects a tree from the approved street tree list, and plants the tree, including cutting the sidewalk if necessary. The page names the Street Tree Management Division as the contact and gives phone numbers and an email address for it.

Limits

• The list is by size, with no column for soil volume, wires, salt, or the width of the planting strip.
• The PDF does not state how the species were chosen, and it shows no revision date inside the file.
• Philadelphia’s tree inventory and planting programmes are on separate pages. The Philadelphia tree data page covers the open data.

This list sits beside the others on the city lists comparison page.

Sources

• City of Philadelphia, Parks and Recreation, Approved Street Trees (PDF, file labelled rev 05 2023), read October 9, 2026
• City of Philadelphia, Get a street tree, read October 9, 2026
• City of Philadelphia, Tree-related services, read October 9, 2026