At Friends of Trees, we don’t just plant a tree and walk away.
We see all the time how excited people are to plant trees, and that’s awesome! But we need support for post-planting care, too, which is why we have a Summer Inspector Program. It’s imperative to make sure that trees get the chance to flourish, especially in places like East Multnomah County, a low-canopy area of the region that accounts for many of the city’s heat-related deaths.
Each summer, we visit every single tree (with a few exceptions) that was planted during the prior planting season. Our volunteer inspectors are trained to check on these young trees to make sure they’re getting the care they need to make it through their first summer.
The door hangers and feedback provided to tree recipients by summer inspector volunteers offer important information on how to best care for newly planted trees and create opportunities to improve tree care practices over time.
*Note: this page describes the Summer Inspector Program in the Portland-Vancouver Metro area. Our Eugene-Springfield team has its own volunteer program for inspecting street trees. Reach out to them at [email protected] if you have questions!
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOUR TREE IS BEING INSPECTED
Thank you for getting your tree through us this past planting season! A trained summer inspector volunteer will come out to inspect your front yard and/or street trees twice this summer. They will fill out this door hanger to let you know what’s going well and what could use a little more care or attention. The door hanger also provides tree care reminders and Friends of Trees contact information.
If you received any back yard trees from us, they will be inspected by Friends of Trees staff once, some time between mid-July and early August. You will be contacted by the summer inspector team a week prior to our visit, so you know when to expect us. Staff will knock on your door before heading to your backyard space. If the trees were planted at a rental property, please inform your renters. For any questions or concerns, please reply directly to the email you receive.
WHAT A SUMMER INSPECTOR DOES
Our Summer Inspector volunteers have the unique opportunity to learn about tree health and young tree care, and apply this new tree knowledge to their community. This community science data collection provides valuable information to you, as well as our team, with the data informing our tree procurement process.
Each summer inspector volunteer is tasked with inspecting 15-25 trees out of the 1,600 trees planted, on average, in neighborhoods around the Portland-Vancouver Metro Area. This includes trees planted along streets (public right-of-way) and trees planted on private property in front and side yards only. We will not have summer inspectors collect data on backyard trees; this is a task that will be reserved for Friends of Trees staff. Volunteers inspect trees twice during the summer. A busy summer of tree-checking!
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
The data collected through our Summer Inspector program will inform the next season’s tree stock and species selection, which allows us to give specific feedback to our nursery partners, evaluate the success rate of our trees for our program and our funders, and continue to improve upon our tree planting, crew leader training. It also creates an opportunity for tree recipients, like you, to learn best tree care practices.
Questions? Reach out to our Summer Inspection Team at [email protected].
Check out our Tree Care Guide here.
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