Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), which works hard to see that Floridians get safe, reliable and fairly continuous electric service, offered helpful tips on National Arbor Day to ensure that people exercise care while planting trees and bushes around existing utility lines.

The guidelines by FPL help ardent 'green goers' to make landscaping choices that don't in any way cause interruptions to the reliable electric service and thus help reduce power outages and flickers, according to utility officials.

While green gardening is good, having the right trees in the right place is important for overhanging tree branches and palm fronds have often been identified as the culprits of power outages.

Eli Viamontes, manager of vegetation management at FPL, chose Arbor day to issue a reminder to

FPL customers to do their bit to maintain safe, reliable electric service for their families and neighbors by thinking carefully before they planted trees or bushes.

FPL urged customers to be careful while selecting a tree, as the size and shape would change dramatically over its lifetime. More importantly, customers needed to know the size of the tree at maturity and how it would affect the power lines.

The power and light company has made this task easy by publishing a list of acceptable trees that can be grown around power lines. This is available at the company Web site.

In addition, FPL cautions against planting trees and bushes very close to power lines, as it affects the electric service in the vicinity. A call to 811 that will ensure that the area around all underground utilities and equipment is marked will prevent people planting in the wrong places.

The power and light company also cautions against pruning any vegetation near overhead power lines. If this needs to be done, licensed and insured contractors need to act.

All these tips are even more important during storms as they can damage trees in the proximity of power lines, causing power outages and flickers.

Viamontes, justifiably proud of FPL's 99.98 percent reliability, observed that the utility was working toward providing 100 percent service, and to this end had cleared vegetation from more than 17,000 miles of power lines in 2011 and planned to do the same in 2012.

A long-time supporter of preserving, protecting and enhancing the environment, FPL has been designated a "Tree Line USA" utility for 10 consecutive years by The National Arbor Day Foundation. The company also possesses the license for subdivisions of the utility to operate Florida water reactors that are consistent with regulations issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to a release carried by TMCnet.