There are roughly the same amount of trees on campus as seniors earning degrees this year, and some were planted before the University’s founding. Though the University might be unrecognizable without the trees, much is required to maintain the canopy of leaves under which students live and study. 
The trees, ranging from sprawling live oaks to sparse cypresses to colorful crepe myrtles, are treated by a team of four men working for Landscape Services, tasked only with pruning and caretaking, said assistant director of Landscape Services Fred Fellner.
“The urban forest, the trees at LSU are the backbone of the LSU green infrastructure. They are the salient feature of campus, the most notable feature of the LSU landscape,” Fellner said. “Anyone coming to LSU, the first thing they see are the trees, they are a big reason why people come here, work here, educate here, stay here.”
Earlier this year, the University was named one of the Arbor Day Foundation’s tree campuses, one of four in the state, for its efforts to preserve and grow the trees. A council meets twice a year to discuss the state of the trees, and students participating in yearly Spring Greening Day help take care of the campus landscape. 
The trees have a real estate value to the University of more than $40 million, Fellner said, and about $250,000 is spent each year on their care. 
The trees must be pruned by cutting dead or malformed branches to shape them and help them grow. The forest needs protection from fungi and destructive insects, and some trees must to be cut down or carefully moved for construction projects, Fellner said. Landscape Services recycles and grinds fallen leaves, dead limbs and felled trees into mulch to spread at the feet of living trees to keep their root systems healthy. 
The larger trees, like the roughly 1,200 live oak trees, are protected from lightning strikes by pure copper wire run through their branches and canopies. Lightning is the fastest killer of trees. 
“All of that costs money, though,” Fellner said. “It costs about a $1,000 to protect one of the live   oak trees from lightning, so what we can do depends on our budget.” 
While there is a price to keeping them healthy, the trees also save on energy costs, said landscape architecture professor Kevin Risk. 
“Obviously, most buildings in Louisiana have air conditioning in them because of the heat index,” Risk said. “But a building whose roof is shaded or also partially shaded by a live oak canopy is going to be less hot, so it would ultimately reduce the cooling cost.” 
He said shady areas provided by trees near building
windows also save cooling costs because less light and heat can enter through the windows. The trees also combat runoff from rain by absorbing it into their root systems. 
“If we removed all of the live oaks from the core of campus, the cost of cooling the campus, among other things, would go up, and the runoff would be greater,” Risk said. 
Alumni and donors can donate varying amounts of money to the Live Oak Endowment, which helps fund some of the tree expenses. Half of the donations go straight to the trees, and the other half goes to the endowment to collect interest. Donating alumni can place plaques at the bases of trees with a chosen message, Fellner said. 
He said there are no rules in place for climbing trees or hammock hanging, although if someone is liable to be injured or break branches, they may be asked to get down. 
Music education freshman Scott Williams said he enjoys the trees on campus because of how they look and the ability to hang up his hammock. 
“I just think it adds beauty to the campus, it’s what kind of defines the campus, having a beautiful campus is just a bragging point,” Williams said. “Hammocking is also one of the nicest ways to relax and get away from the academic points of school.”
Fellner said the shapes of some of the largest live oak trees mirror the campus. 
“I always like to say that the architecture on campus is Italian Renaissance architecture, so you have arches and clay tile roofs and this Mediterranean look,” Fellner said. “The live oak trees, now that they are mature, have the same architecture and the graceful, sloping, large limbs and they have the same motif, the same design elements that you see in that Italian architecture. I like to think that the people that planted them originally had that in mind.”