Helping young trees grow to their full potential

On Saturday, Dec. 1, Friends of Trees joined Portland Parks & Recreation’s Urban Forestry Division for a morning of pruning young trees in the Concordia neighborhood.

Ten ISA-certified arborists made it possible for small groups of volunteers to learn proper structural pruning. Altogether, 234 young trees were pruned!

This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the Concordia Tree Team and Portland Parks & Recreation Tree Inventory leaders from several neighborhoods.

Friends of Trees Neighborhood Trees Senior Specialist (and ISA-certified arborist) Jesse Batty said:

“By structurally pruning young street trees at an early age, we can remove defects that may become hazardous in the long term. Early investment in young tree care is important to ensure that these urban trees continue to be assets which provide a suite of benefits, rather than liabilities. FOT hopes to conduct future trainings and events involving structural pruning of young street trees and would love to have more people involved.”

Don’t miss this slide show of photos taken by Portland Parks & Recreation’s Angie DiSalvo, which shows how to prune a young tree so it grows to its full potential as a sound, strong and sturdy member of our city forest.