City dwellers want and need trees in their home landscapes. Trees provide numerous ecosystem services and help to create a sense of place within built-up urban landscapes – and because of this, urban residents form connections with and dependencies on the trees around them, whether or not they are aware. When these trees that individuals and communities rely on are suddenly gone, their experience of their home landscapes can change dramatically. Within the context of a tornado that caused dramatic tree canopy loss in Springfield, Massachusetts in June of 2011, we investigated resident perspectives of tree loss in order to understand what they valued about trees; how their relationship with trees and their experience of their home landscape was altered as a result of the tornado; and how they experienced a post-tornado yard tree planting program and interacted with the stewardship of their new trees in an altered landscape. Knowing that qualitative, semi-structured research interviews are an effective way of gaining a deep and clear understanding of an individual’s values, experiences and perspectives, we elected to use this methodology as the core of this research. Firstly, we performed a literature review in order to understand how and why researchers in the field of urban forestry have been employing this methodology, and found that civilian (non-urban forestry practitioner) perspectives are less prevalent in qualitative urban forestry research, particularly in the Global North. This highlighted the importance of centering resident perspectives of tree loss and tree regrowth in the aftermath of the tornado, rather than urban forestry practitioner or decision maker perspectives. As weather events become increasingly frequent and severe, and tree loss continues to be a significant consequence of these severe weather events, it is necessary to understand how community members feel about this loss so that disaster recovery resources can be appropriately tailored to their needs.