How To Add Native Trees To Your Yard (For Free)

Planting native trees in your yard is one way to rebuild the local ecosystem with plants that thrive in your area. Native trees attract a diverse variety of birds, providing them with shelter and even specific insects, fruits, or other foods. Many native trees are also the only larval hosts for certain moth and butterfly species. While local nurseries most likely carry native tree saplings that can thrive in your yard, in some cases, you can also get them for free, especially in the spring. In addition to helping improve your local ecosystem, free tree giveaways are a great hack for making your outdoor space look luxurious on a tight budget. 

Local or state organizations, utility companies, and sometimes even the National Wildlife Federation offer free trees indigenous to your area. In some cases, you'll need to sign up ahead of time to ensure you get a tree. In other instances, as with the NWF, you may have to register as part of a community organization, like the Foundation for Environmental Education, that already partners with the tree-offering group.

Once in a while, local communities give out a number of trees to residents to plant in their own yards. If you can prove residency and have a vehicle to transport one or more saplings, you can find trees to create shade and privacy in your yard, free of charge and often without signing up in advance.

To locate free native trees, visit your local governments' websites. Seattle, Washington, for example, has a site called Trees for Neighborhoods, with annual sign-up windows. In some cases, such information may even be shared on utility bills, or on paperwork sent by the city. Lakewood, Ohio gives trees away annually, in conjunction with the Arbor Day Foundation, in an effort to boost the city's tree canopy coverage. Lakewood also has a Tree Advisory and Education Board that provides information on how to register for a free tree, as well as how to plant and care for it. The city offers a limited number of free native trees on a specific giveaway day each spring. Unclaimed trees are then available later that day on a first come, first served basis. Likewise, the New York Restoration Project has a similar program that requires advance signup, but the city usually has extras to give away on specific spring dates in each of its five boroughs. That program is first-come, first-served and doesn't require any sort of sign-up.

Another approach is via donations and memberships. A one-time or continual gift to The Arbor Day Foundation allows you to receive free trees from them. The native trees offered depend upon where you live, but in Ohio in spring 2026, they're offering five different flowering trees, five Norway spruce, and two crape myrtles, all shipped as bare-root trees. This year, the trees have to be ordered by early May, with shipment later in the year, because some trees are best planted in fall. If you have enough trees, you can opt to restore 20 trees in a local forest, which is also helpful to your region.