NOV 2024: OUR VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY | BULBS! | WINTER TREE CARE
WHAT IT MEANS TO COME TOGETHER TO PLANT TREES
Looking for community? Join us at a planting event this season.
When you show up to a Saturday morning planting event, you get put on a crew, and before you start planting, you all circle up. Your crew leader throws out an ice breaker, maybe something like “what’s your favorite tree?” You haven’t started planting yet, or even gotten a demo on how to plant, but this is when the event really begins. With breaking the ice.
Since 1989, over 75,000 people have shown up to a Friends of Trees event on a Saturday morning. No matter the location, the species being planted, or the weather, one thing is for certain: when you come to a planting event, you’re going to meet someone new. You’re going to break some ice. And you’re going to work together to accomplish something for your community.
Trees are awesome, of course. We talk about that all the time. People are awesome, too, and we can’t talk about that enough. We couldn’t do what we do without people. And we wouldn’t want to. Everyone on the Tree Team loves to bring people together to take climate action make our world a greener place.
And we need you. We need you to come to planting events and help us get trees and native plants in the ground. We need you to break the ice and work together. Almost every Saturday from December through April, we have a chance for you to help make your community a greener place. Rain or shine, you’re going to be happy you came out.
The world is faced with so many issues that require so many solutions, including climate change, which continues to be an existential threat to all communities. We have two solutions that we think everyone can get behind: trees + community.
So often when a crew returns from planting, we see that they’ve progressed so far beyond the ice breaker. After just a few hours of collaboration, they’ve coalesced as a team sharing pride in what they’ve accomplished. All of us on the Tree Team have witnessed this phenomenon that is both mundane and amazing: people connecting. Over a shared love of nature. Over a shared concern for the future. Over a shared calling to give back.
We’re giving away thousands of amazing native bulbs!
Bulbs are amazing when you think about them. In the fall, you bury a little pod in your garden, and come spring it’s a beautiful flower.
“Bulbs are an underground storage organ,” says Eugene Director Erik Burke. “We’re really excited to give away thousands of them.”
On December 7th, Friends of Trees Eugene-Springfield will have a Native Bulb Giveaway event, giving away more than 4,000 native geophytes. Each person will be able to select up to 10 bulbs from a variety of native species including great camas, common camas, common milkweed, tiger lily, Wapato, Oregon checker mallow and more. Planting and care guides will be available for all attendees to take home with their new plants.
“We’re hoping people will have a lot of success with these,” Erik says. “After they’re properly planted, they won’t need any watering, although a little the first year may help them establish.”
All of the species are native plants and culturally important plants, and most of them are edible! They’re great for pollinators and all have beautiful flowers, so anyone would be happy with them in their yard. These plants spread really well, especially with the help of people, leading to the theory that they co-evolved with indigenous harvesting practices.
Here are the steps you can take to prepare your trees for the winter ahead.
Fall brings cooler days, longer nights, the return of rain, an extra layer or two when we head out, and the striking colors on display gifted to us by nature. You’re not the only one who has felt the days getting shorter. Our trees noticed, too, and they’ve taken it as a sign that the growing season is over. In a process called abscission, trees reabsorb nutrients stored in the leaves before detaching and shedding them.
Fallen leaves still have plenty of nutrients, which is why we encourage you to leave the leaves. Leaves are vitamins for plants and magic for building the health and vitality of soil, especially where urban soils are devoid of nutrients. Think of your leaves as free fertilizer! You can use your leaves like mulch and rake them under your trees to nourish the roots (but keep them away from the trunk). Just like you would with mulch, follow the 3-3-3 rule: 3 inches away from the trunk, 3 inches deep, and at least a 3 foot radius to nourish the roots
Roots can grow year round in the right conditions—moisture, air, and temperature. To help keep those conditions right for your young tree, make sure you replenish your mulch for winter. Just like how mulch keeps roots cool in summer, it keeps them warm in winter. And it will protect from the drying effects of winter winds. One inch of mulch is a windbreaker, three inches is like a down jacket.
It’s also a perfect time of year to take care of maintenance of your medium and large trees. Last winter, we saw some serious winter storms. The best thing we can be doing this time of year to make our trees more storm resilient is pruning.
Help us reach our 1 millionth tree this planting season!
We have such awesome planting events for you this season! Whether it’s in a neighborhood or natural area, we would love your help building community with trees and native plants. It’s a great way to take climate action, and as a volunteer named Caela puts it, planting trees is the “best reason in the world to wear rubber pants and play in the mud!”
We’re still looking for volunteers for these events:
December 7, Natural area planting, Butternut Creek Tributary, Aloha
Crew Leaders and Assistants—watch your inbox for Crew Leader News on the first of the month! Trained Crew Leaders sign-up for events here.
GIVE!GUIDE
Willamette Week’s Give!Guide goes through December 31st! Stay tuned to our social media channels for Big Give Days, special events, and more. Our first 300 donors get a slice and a pint from our business sponsorsRanch PizzaandLevel Beer!
With your gift, however large or small, Friends of Trees is on its way toward hitting a $70k goal for the Give!Guide by year’s end. Your support will not only help us reach the milestone of 1 million trees and native plants, it’ll get us started on the next million! All planted by and for the community.
We’d love it if you also supported our partners: APANO, Depave, The Blueprint Foundation, Columbia Slough Watershed Council, Wisdom of the Elders, and POIC.
This season Friends of Trees celebrates planting a million trees *and native shrubs with more than 75,000 community volunteers since 1989.
Think about the difference those trees and natural areas make in our lives; think about all of those volunteers, getting up on countless Saturday mornings over the past 36 years. That’s why we’re celebrating with tree walks, tree talks, and special events! This celebration is made possible by our Presenting Partner: Portland General Electric!
Whether its a funny anecdote, a lovely little memory, or a longer tale, your stories will help us celebrate our Millionth Tree season! Your submission could make it into a Treemail story or a social media post! Have a story? Fill out this simple form.
Our first bilingual planting ~ El Primer Evento Bilingüe de Plantar árboles de Friends of Trees | Get to know our partner: Sandy River Watershed Council
