Friends of Trees in PNW

Friends of Trees in PNW (Pacific Northwest of USA) is not new. In fact it has been around a longtime having been established way back in 1989.

In those last 35 years almost one million trees and native shrubs have been planted.
I think that you’ll agree that this is an impressive achievement!

 

 

 

What is Friends of Trees?

Quite simply it’s a scheme that provides heavily subsidised trees for homeowners to plant on their property. Trees might typically cost the homeowner just $35 each which seems to me to be remarkably good value!

But there’s much more to this scheme than that!

Trees are sourced and supplied by local wholesale tree growers and funding comes from both the homeowner and from local fund raising. Some funds come from company sponsorships and also from individual legacies.

Whilst the trees are undoubtedly cheap and heavily subsidised it is the “hand holding” and aftercare that appears to have made a big difference.

 

 

 

How it works

A homeowner might want to plant a few trees in front of their property in the strip between the sidewalk (pavement) and the street or highway. This strip of fairly inhospitable land for plants is the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain and is nicknamed the “hell strip”. You can read my blog about hell strips and learn why they are called that here.

But in addition to supply of the tree or trees the homeowner is given sound advice on where best to plant trees, which species are likely to succeed and which would be most suitable.

And it doesn’t stop at that!

 

 

 

 

Aftercare

Volunteers plant your trees for you and will return periodically to check that your trees are establishing. This later part is all too often missing from many well meaning tree planting schemes. Sadly many trees are planted elsewhere (often by local authorities) and left to die through lack of water in those all important early years of establishment. I was told by one delighted homeowner that he generally has a monthly visit to see how the newly planted trees are doing.

Adequate watering in the first few years is crucial to successful establishment of any tree. Here in the Pacific Northwest there is plenty of rain in spring, fall and winter. However there is very little if any during the summer. Consequently regular watering is essential to get good establishment.

Tree watering bags seem to be the best solution since most home owners apply too little water from a can or hosepipe to

provide adequate water. The tree watering bags are widely available online and cost around $15-30 each. Once filled the water seeps out of the bag to the root zone and thoroughly soaks the soil. This method minimises water loss through evaporation. Bags will need topping up periodically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building a community too

A key part of this scheme builds a community in the neighbourhood.

This is achieved by most of the tree planting being carried out by volunteers.
Trees are planted throughout October to April when they are mostly dormant. This is the ideal time to plant them.

Volunteers will do the actual planting after being trained to do so. A group will turn up on a morning and get stuck into planting the trees for the homeowner.

But others might volunteer by providing and driving their pickup truck to collect, then deliver the trees to the planting site complete with tools and suitable planting materials.

And others may volunteer to help by providing refreshments to the volunteer planters.

 

 

 

Why not everywhere?

Isn’t this something that could be replicated in Britain?

With the climate crisis that we all now face there is little doubt that trees can play a significant role in stopping or even rolling back the heating up of the earth that we are experiencing.

With an estimated 27 million gardeners in Britain (over 40% of the population) this scheme could have real impact. It would also give hope to so many who feel that climate change itself is just too big a thing for them to have any effect on. If we all did our bit that would add up to a huge amount of trees being planted and cared for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional reading

The website of Friends of Trees has much more details than I have been able to write here. Do take a look at it here.Do take a look at it here.

Tree planting in urban areas is important but so too is managing rainwater run off to prevent flooding. You may care to read my blog on SuDS here. You may care to read my blog on SuDS here.

I’ve also written about garden trees to encourage wildlife here and Fruiting trees for the small garden here.

 

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