Ned Sodja, a 20-year veteran tree inspector with Portland Urban Forestry, talks us through a tree removal inspection in Eastmoreland during a Friends of Trees ride-along yesterday.
Check back with the blog on Monday for an in-depth feature on the ride-along that will include the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of residential tree removal in Portland.
–Toshio Suzuki
There are 14 Friends of Trees plantings remaining this season, from this Saturday through April 10.
As of Feb. 26, thanks to volunteers, donors, partners and sponsors, Friends of Trees has planted 11,310 trees and shrubs in the Portland Metropolitan area. That equates to over 386,000 trees and shrubs in 20 years!
A staggering tree tally that [...]
The New York Daily News offered this update yesterday on the MillionTreesNYC project, including space to relay the benefits street trees provide:
Since October of 2007, MillionTreesNYC has planted over 300,000 trees of which 165,000 have been located in New York City’s forests – the result of a partnership with Natural Resources Group. NRG is the [...]
Tags: street trees
About 23 Schnitzer Steel employees enjoyed the fine weather last weekend and helped green the I-205 Multi-Use Path in Lents.
Friends of Trees and its Green Space Initiative program, in partnership with ODOT and Metro, are planting thousands of trees along the transportation corridor over the next three years.
Exactly 600 large trees have already been planted [...]
The Citywide Tree Project (CTP) continues its public vetting process, with two open-houses and one hearing scheduled for next month.
Last week, the urban forestry commission received individual copies of the 755-page document that is described as a “regulatory improvement project” by Project Manager Roberta Jortner of the Bureau of Planning & Sustainability (BPS).
Last night, Jortner [...]
Several Disney music, television and film stars planted trees at a Celebrating Family Volunteers event earlier this month at Disney World.
Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato, among other Disney troupe members, planted while wearing aprons and implementing yellow hand shovels that normally could be used making sand castles or cleaning an incredibly large kitty litter box.
While [...]
By Teri Ruch
This morning’s OPB story by Rob Manning features a video that OPB Oregon Field Guide producer Vince Patton made of illegal trail creation in north Forest Park.
Here is a portion of the caught-on-video confrontation in text:
Vince Patton: “Are you putting in a legal trail? Do you have permission to be here?”
Man: “Oh, I’m [...]
The iPhone application for street tree lovers finally exists. Of course, presently, it only exists for New York City street tree lovers.
Trees Near You chronicles all of the 500,000 street trees in New York City, providing species type, size and the estimated environmental and economic benefits provided.
As shown on the application’s Web site, users can [...]
Tags: carbon, runoff, street trees
For the first time since 1980, the City of Portland is rewriting its codes and policies, including urban forestry.
Eric Engstrom of the Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability (BPS)—the bureau spearheading the all-encompassing Portland Plan—presented to the Urban Forestry Commission last Thursday on their specific topic and the overall status of the project.
Calling it the [...]
Tags: BPS, carbon, development, policy
Two large trees on Multnomah County right-of-way were removed last week at the corner of Southwest Stark Street and Naito Parkway.
“They were in decline but the main reason they were coming out was the sidewalk damage,” said Jim Field, the inspector for Portland’s Urban Forestry. “It came time to get them out of there.”
Naito Parkway, [...]
By Elizabeth Craig
Planting trees and shrubs along the I-205 Multi-Use Path on a cold and windy Saturday morning, 19-year-old Antonio Askew thinks about the future.
“Like if I have kids, I can tell them, ‘Hey, I helped with that,’” said Askew as he pointed to freshly planted trees along the path.
Askew is a graduate of Portland [...]
Soccer hooligans? How about community-minded tree planters.
Thanks to long-time volunteer Irek Wielgosz, who initially posted an invite on an online forum, the Timbers Army annually volunteers at a Friends of Trees planting.
This year on Valentine’s weekend, about a dozen members affiliated with the Portland professional soccer fan club helped plant 178 trees in the Boise, [...]
Seven new fruit trees were planted Saturday at the Sabin Neighborhood’s new community orchard.
Mayor Sam Adams, along with Commissioner Amanda Fritz, joined the Portland Fruit Tree Project and other volunteers to plant the fruit trees: pear; asian pear; apple; persimmon; fig; plum; and cherry.
Supported by a grant from the city of Portland’s Neighborhood Small Grants [...]
Tags: apple, cherry, fig, fruit trees, Mayor Adams, pear, persimmon, planting, plum
Her goal was to plant 46 trees—one for every year her son lived.
At her first Gift Trees planting in December, OraLee Olson planted 21 trees in memory of her son, Barry Cooper Olson, whom she lost last year to depression and alcoholism.
As of today, Olson’s friends and family have ordered nearly 75 trees to be [...]
Tags: Audubon, Collins Sanctuary, Gift Trees, planting
What do you get when you cross an American Sycamore with an Oriental Sycamore?
The answer is not ‘Mixed-race Sycamore.’
According to The Los Angeles Times, the result is “probably the most planted urban street tree in the world.”
This big tree, found in London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles, tolerates polluted air, compacted soil and hard [...]
Feature story and video yesterday in The New York Times about a parks project that is training the next generation of “green-collar” jobs:
In New York, a city where tree climbing in public parks is officially considered disorderly conduct, the art of hauling yourself skyward, branch by branch, may be endangered for children and adults alike. [...]
Tags: canopy, fruit trees, pruning
Angelina Jolie bought her husband and cohort Brad Pitt a 200-year-old Olive Tree for Valentine’s Day, reports US Magazine and The Sun.
The movie star couple and hurricane of international goodwill reportedly spent $18,500 for the tree, which will be planted, or transplanted, at their French chateau.
In comparison, a single tree purchased and planted via the [...]
Tags: Collins Sanctuary, Gift Trees, planting
A new bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives is aiming to reauthorize the Small Business Association (SBA) tree-planting program from the 1990s.
The national small business tree-planting program (H.R. 4509)—sponsored by Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) last month and co-sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)—has been referred to the House committee on small business for [...]
Friends of Trees and its Neighborhood Trees (NT) program planted 178 trees the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, 20 of which went in on Oregon Department of Transportation land at N. Michigan and N. Skidmore.
The majority of street and yard trees planted went to homes in the Boise, Eliot, Humboldt and King neighborhoods.
All of the trees [...]
Tags: BES, ODOT, planting, street trees, yard trees
The environmental blogosphere has picked up a story about Trees for Cities, a tree-planting nonprofit in the United Kingdom that is unabashedly promoting a planting Sunday as a place to find love.
Why not?
The event is organized for young singles aged 18-25, with the goal of pairing up planters to see if they can hit it [...]
Tags: planting
The tents are going up, the desk spaces have been cleared, and yes, the tools and trees are ready to be planted.
Tomorrow’s Neighborhood Trees (NT) planting for the Boise, Eliot, Humboldt and King neighborhoods is special for a number of reasons, but reason No. 1: only once a year is a planting hosted at the [...]
Tags: planting, street trees, yard trees
Any presidential historians out there?
Despite his axe-wielding abilities, was ‘Honest Abe’ a secret admirer of the Cherry Tree?
On President Lincoln’s birthday, let us honor the White Oak, the state tree for his home state of Illinois—even though the president was actually born in what state?
–Toshio Suzuki
The Oregonian this morning featured Geoffrey Donovan and David Butry’s study on the impact street trees have on real estate prices.
Environmental beat reporter Matthew Preusch walks with Donovan through Ladd’s Addition and also references a local real estate representative and Jennifer Karps of the Bureau of Environmental Services.
An excerpt:
“When you think about it from a [...]
Tags: BES, education, street trees
Retail space beneath 18 eco-friendly apartments is coming to the 3900 block of the bike boulevard N. Williams Ave.
About half of the trees on the lot had to be removed to make room for the development, but everything not in the building footprint will remain, said Andy Leritz, project supervisor for Siteworks Portland.
“They tried to [...]
Tags: bike, development
In its 20 year history, Friends of Trees has planted over 382,000 trees and shrubs in the Portland-metro area.
During our current planting season, which runs through April, this tally is going up every weekend.
It’s an impressive mechanism to watch: teams of volunteers lending each other a hand; and a dedicated staff working as long as [...]
Tags: Audubon, bike, Collins Sanctuary, Gift Trees, planting, Tigard
The majority of staffers at Friends of Trees commute by bike. And with the growing popularity of the Plant by Bike plantings, Friends of Trees was forced to address a serious issue for some planting sites: bike locking locales.
Especially for the Green Space Initiative plantings along the I-205 Multi-Use Path, where convenient places to lock [...]
Tags: bike, I-205, planting, volunteering