Erik’s 25th Planting Season!

A note from Eugene Director Erik Burke as he enters his 25th planting season

The planting season in Eugene and Springfield is almost here, and if you ask me what I’m looking forward to the most, it’s simple: I’m just really looking forward to planting with volunteers. We’ve built up a great core of volunteers, and I know that I’ll get to meet cool new people, too.

I started with Eugene Tree Foundation in 2001—we were a little more ragtag then— and we officially became the Friends of Trees Eugene Branch in 2011. That means this will be my 25th season. Regardless of whether or not I’m feeling the years, I still get really happy on planting days, and I even find myself floating for a few hours afterwards.

I was talking with my teammate Taylor recently about how we used to do our bike plantings without any e-bikes. You’d inevitably take the wrong route and find yourself face to face with a huge hill. Maybe not that huge, but when you’re towing a trailer full of trees and shovels, any hill is huge. Taylor pointed out that in situations like that, our volunteers always rally around the spirit of “we can do it!”

At every planting event, something different always happens. A new challenge emerges. Lately, I’ve been trying more and more to step back and let the people on the crew work together to solve a problem. And every single time, people come together to figure it out.

There aren’t a lot of opportunities to meet such a wide variety of people. We have volunteers from age two to 80-plus. I like being surprised by people. Like the young woman at the pizza shop who saw my oak tree shirt and called herself a “Quercus garryana gal.” How can you not love that?

I’m really looking forward to the joy, gratitude, and appreciation I find at planting events. Tree planting brings together people who care, and we’re so lucky to live in a community that cares so deeply about nature.

If you’re excited as I am, or if you’re looking to be a part of something special, I hope you’ll join us at an event in Eugene or Springfield this season. Our calendar is live!