Friends of Trees planting programs break records

Both Friends of Trees’ Neighborhood Trees and Green Space Initiative programs set new records this month.

The Green Space Initiative program hosted an unprecedented five plantings in less than a week, between January 17 and 23. And last weekend the Neighborhood Trees program planted more street and yard trees in one day than ever before—500!

Kudos to the super-busy Green Space team of Logan Lauvray and Sean Sweeney; to the neighborhood coordinators in Creston-Kenilworth, Reed, Foster-Powell, South Tabor, North Tabor, Kerns, Sunnyside, and Laurelhurst; to the planting team at Verde; and to Friends of Trees Neighborhood Trees staffers Erica Timm and Elizabeth Elbel, who managed last weekend’s record plantings.

The Neighborhood Trees team was especially impressed by the extra efforts of Antelmo Medina and Humberto Cabrera of Rigert Shade Trees. When they finished unloading the Rigert trees to be planted that morning, they helped unload another truck of trees, too. As if that wasn’t enough, after joining Friends of Trees for breakfast and receiving a round of applause for their extra help, they stayed for the rest of the morning to plant with a crew that was short of volunteers!

“Rigert has been so flexible with us over the years. They are a wonderful nursery to work with,” Neighborhood Trees Manager Whitney Dorer said. She explained that the nursery digs their balled and burlapped trees by hand and usually delivers the trees directly to the staging site. “It is inspiring to see that the nurseries we work with take such great care in what they do that they will stick around till the final tree is planted.”

With last weekend’s plantings, Friends of Trees has planted 12,171 trees and shrubs since October. Join us this weekend to add more green to our metro area. We have two neighborhood plantings—in Arbor Lodge and Overlook, and in Centennial, Hazelwood, and Mill Park—and Green Space Initiative plantings in Brown’s Ferry Park, Tualatin, and in Tranquil Park, Wilsonville.

The Arbor Lodge and Overlook plantings are sponsored by Adidas and Portland General Electric, the Tranquil Park planting is in partnership with the city of Wilsonville, and the Brown’s Ferry planting is in partnership with the city of Tualatin and Clean Water Services.

Both the Neighborhood Trees plantings and the Brown’s Ferry Park planting are also mid-winter crew leader trainings. We look forward to welcoming more crew leaders to our expanding team!

–TR