This tour highlights the partnership between the City of Austin’s Urban Forest Grant (UFG) and St. Edward’s University, which has received grant funding to advance the university’s Sustainable Hilltop mission. UFG strengthens Austin’s urban forest by supporting stewardship activities such as tree planting, maintenance, education, and disease management. Discover how this grant program invests in community partners who prioritize the long-term health of Austin’s urban forest ecosystem as we tour beautiful St. Edward’s University.
We’ll explore this academic oasis near the heart of downtown, where the university’s scenic hilltop campus hosts the only on-campus food forest in Texas, demonstrating how permaculture principles are being applied to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that nourishes both people and the planet. Learn how the Food Forest integrates native and edible plants, pollinator habitats, and rainwater harvesting systems to restore biodiversity and build climate resilience. Stroll among fruit and nut trees, medicinal herbs, and companion plantings that showcase a regenerative landscape that thrives in Central Texas’ unique environment.
Continue as we explore a new green initiative—the Miyawaki Pocket Forest. This compact, high-density woodland is designed to recreate the structure and diversity of a natural forest in a fraction of the time. Though still in its early stages, this emerging pocket of green will serve as a living classroom and carbon sink, offering ecological benefits and renewal for the surrounding community. Included in the tour of the forest will be a stop at the Climate Resiliency Living Lab plot as well as one of the largest and oldest oak trees in Austin, Sorin Oak.