AUGUST 2024: WORKFORCE TRAINING SUCCESS | INSPECTOR INTERN | LATE BLOOMS
“EVERYONE DESERVES BEAUTIFUL TREES”
A pruner’s journey through our workforce training program and beyond
What does a chef have in common with an arborist? For Joseph Nontanovan, both roles embody the intersection of creativity and technical skill. Before the pandemic, Joseph was working as a catering chef. After the world shut down, he found himself spending more and more time in his garden in Oakland.
“I got really into plants,” he says. “It was a fun hobby, and it made sense to go from working with vegetables in a kitchen setting to working with plants in the garden.” After moving to Portland, he enrolled in Portland Community College’s Landscape Technology program.
“When I took my first class on trees, I just started nerding out. It was amazing to go from not being able to distinguish between species to little by little knowing more and more.”
While working at the PCC Learning Garden, Joseph encountered folks from the Portland Fruit Tree Project who told him about Connecting Canopies. Connecting Canopiesoffers a 9-month training in urban forestry and restoration to BIPOC adults. Part of the curriculum includes 10 weeks with Friends of Trees’ Adult Urban Forestry & Restoration Training Program, focusing on a community approach to planting trees.
Learning about Connecting Canopies helped Joseph decide to pivot from studying landscape tech to arboriculture. His time in the program was especially valuable for the sense of community. “It’s rare to find a program where you get to build such a sense of camaraderie,” Joseph says. “Working with other folks from marginalized communities, it was a uniquely safer space.”
After Connecting Canopies, Joseph decided to find his own niche and start his own company,Thomas & Sons Tree Care, which focuses on fine pruning ornamental and fruit-bearing trees and shrubs.
“Aesthetic pruning satisfies the artistic and technical aspects of myself,” Joseph says. “And there are a lot of shaggy Japanese maples out there!” He has been building his business locally by describing himself as an artist-technician and posting before and after videos on Instagram and Nextdoor. He’s been flooded with responses. Working in his own neighborhood gives him more time and capacity to offer services on a sliding scale.
“I really love pruning trees, so even if folks need a discount, I’m just happy to do it,” Joseph says. “Everyone deserves beautiful trees.”
Unleashing my inner Johnny Appleseed was not on my summer schedule. I expected to spend my Communications & Business Relations internship at Friends of Trees behind a desk, researching potential business partners and monitoring social media metrics. As it turns out, that is only half the story. The other half involves filming staff gushing about their favorite trees, exploring local parks with the community, and learning how to identify native plant species with the best of them (a.k.a, my coworkers).
Recently, my job took me to the beautiful neighborhoods of southern Vancouver to inspect trees. Armed with a pencil, clipboard, and a sunny disposition, I hit the streets. From checking the moisture levels of the soil to making sure the mulch had the perfect donut shape, I had my work cut out for me. But as they say, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.
The goal of the Friends of Trees summer inspection program is to make sure that our newly planted trees (in their first 1-3 summers) are healthy and thriving. As a volunteer summer inspector, you’ll get to share your tree knowledge with your community, learn how to spot healthy and unhealthy trees, and ensure the survival of these young trees. I’ve learned that, here at Friends of Trees, we don’t just plant and walk away. If a tree has dry leaves, we figure out why. Most likely, it needs more water. Mystery solved!
When speaking with Litzy Venturi, our Community Tree Care Coordinator, I gathered that this program isn’t simply about inspecting newly established trees.
“A lot of these volunteers have gotten a tree themselves and by inspecting these neighborhoods, they get to form a relationship with not only the neighborhood trees, but the neighborhood itself. You get to bond with others in your community about your shared passion.”
This story was written and reported by Josh Celio Espinoza. Read more here!
THE EUGENE BRANCH
Our favorite late bloomers!
By late August, most of our trees have gone to seed. But we have a few favorite late summer bloomers for you to sniff around for!
“It’s important to have flowers available to native pollinators,” says Eugene Director Erik Burke. “There’s not a lot of forage for pollinators this time of year. Having trees flower at different times gives them their best chance of getting the nectar they need.”
An especially charismatic tree this time of year is the Harlequin glorybower. It’s a cool name for a cool tree. Its pink and blue flowers look like something out of a Tim Burton movie, and they have a delicious smell. Speaking of delicious, the leaves smell like peanut butter!
While the Harlequin glorybower is appealing in many ways, this ornamental tree is not particularly climate resilient.
“We love some trees for their toughness,” Erik says. “We appreciate others just because they’re really cool. And that’s okay.”
A tree that’s flowering right now and is a great drought tolerant option: the Japanese pagoda tree. This medium-sized tree has beautiful white flowers, and because it does well in poorly drained soils, it’s a good choice for Eugene.
Trees aren’t the only ones with some flowers popping this time of year. There are some amazing native plants like goldenrod and milkweed that are feeding the pollinators. Asters, too, are starting to bloom, and they’ll stay in bloom for several months!
We’ll kick off our 36th planting season in October. Join us!
Love the idea of learning from and leading community members to plant trees? Looking for a way to take climate action? Want to make a lasting, positive impact in a fun outdoor environment? Join our Crew Leader Training Program to mentor others in your community, make meaningful connections, and of course, plant trees!
This program is open to everyone, no experience needed. It’s a great way to learn new skills and build a sense of place in your community. Visit our website to sign up and join our crew leader training this fall!
Our friends atStraightaway Cocktailshave been raising money for trees + community through the sale of the canned cocktail, Cascade Spritz. We’re so grateful to them for their partnership, their time volunteering at a Friends of Trees event, and for spreading the word about trees with a tasty beverage! We just took a moment with them to reflect on the partnership.
Why did Straightaway want to partner with Friends of Trees?
Our new cocktail, Cascade Spritz, that was released back in February was created in partnership with Wieden + Kennedy for their campaign ‘Portland Is What We Make It’. The campaign focuses on investing back into culture, community, and the city to celebrate all the things that make Portland so special. We saw a true connection between this campaign, our PNW wine spritz, and Friends of Trees. Friends of Trees not only works to plant trees in our communities but does so with a focus on equitable tree planting in neighborhoods that need it the most.
In tandem with the giveback program on the can, we were able to feature Friends of Trees as our quarterly Cocktails for a Cause campaign to further raise money and awareness of Friends of Trees!
What was it like to volunteer at a Friends of Trees event?
A chance to get out of the office and production facility to get our hands dirty and plant some trees?? Sign us up! Our volunteer day was so fun and collaborative for our team to be involved in! This was a special volunteer day because we were able to come together as a team and give back directly to our community while also supporting the release of our Cascade Spritz.
Our first bilingual planting ~ El Primer Evento Bilingüe de Plantar árboles de Friends of Trees | Get to know our partner: Sandy River Watershed Council
