Category Archives: Trees

Reminding a community of its differences and similarities, creating a living laboratory to study trees, filtering pollutants and noise from nearby arterial roads, acting as a gateway for people traveling from the airport to northeast Portland neighborhoods.

All these and more were the aspirations for creating the International Grove 10 years ago at the corner of 42nd Avenue and Lombard Street.

Developing the grove was part of the Bureau of Environmental Services Grey to Green Canopy Initiative. That eightyear commitment began in 2008 to increase the health of local watersheds.

Efforts included construction and planting projects to divert stormwater from the sewer system, reduce flooding and erosion, filter pollutants, provide habitat and increase neighborhood green space.

The Concordia and Cully tree teams and the Ainsworth Street Collective were involved in planning and planting the grove. Maintenance over the years has mainly been performed by volunteers.

To reflect the many cultures represented in nearby neighborhoods, the grove includes trees from six continents. Those trees include the Chilean beech and the Moroccan snow gum. This diversity is in contrast to the maples, ornamental cherries/plums and crabapples found widespread in the city.

A similar combination of trees was not anywhere else in the city, apart from perhaps Hoyt Arboretum, according to Robert Pallesen. In 2011 he served on the Concordia Neighborhood Association Tree Team.

“We will now have a unique arborscape that will look distinctive and attractive year round,” he told The Oregonian in 2011.

Planting different types of trees in the grove also offers an opportunity to study, over time, which trees could offer shade, mitigate climate change effects and filter air pollution.

For example, current day tree team members found the cork oak tree did much better in a recent ice-storm than expected.

“The grove is important because as northeast 42nd becomes denser and more built up, urban heat island effects will become more pronounced,” said Jim Gersbach, Concordia Tree Team member.

“Expanses of tree-shaded land will become even more precious and lifesaving as cool-air refuges,” he added.

Jordana Leeb is a longtime Concordia resident who is passionate about the neighborhood, its people and trees. She lives with her partner and newly adopted special needs dog. You can see her recent film about Concordia at TinyURL.com/ DiaryOfAStreet.

The future of the International Grove hangs in the balance. There are many threats to this unique stand of more than 60 trees, including people driving and parking inside the grove.

The most pressing issue on the minds of local tree and community advocates is the possibility the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) will use the grove for two years as construction staging or parking.

That would be during the $12 million reconstruction project beginning next year on the 42nd Avenue overpass across Lombard Street. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) owns most of the grove’s land.

“Using the grove as a staging area is a concern because parking heavy equipment and materials would cause soil compaction,” said Jim Gersbach, Concordia Tree Team member and 20-year Concordia resident. “That can be deadly to trees because it prevents water and oxygen from reaching their roots.”

Moreover, staging work could injure tree bark and limbs. Tree advocates have identified alternative sites for construction staging.

Staff members from the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), residents of Nesika Illahee across 42nd Avenue from the grove and members of the Cully and Concordia tree teams met during the summer to talk about what they would like to see happen in the grove instead.

Nesika Illahee opened in early 2020 and was developed by NAYA and tribal and nontribal partners as affordable housing for Native Americans in recovery.

“I would like to help the grove grow,” said Angelique Saxton, resident services manager at the 59-unit complex.

“I have heard from the resident community they would like the grove to be part of Nesika and become more inviting, more people friendly and have safer access. It could be used for meditation, drumming, picnics and recovery meetings.”

Eleven organizations signed a joint letter to PBOT and ODOT to ask them to not use the area for construction staging. The letter also asks the agencies to consider pedestrian safety and to include Native American art and culture in the new bridge design.

These organizations included: NAYA, Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Verde, Hacienda Community Development Corporation, Our 42nd Ave, Cully Boulevard Alliance, Living Cully, Portland Clean Air, Cully Association of Neighbors, Concordia Neighborhood Association and Habitat for Humanity Portland Region.

Bob Granger, a member of the Cully Tree Team who helped plant the grove in 2011, is impressed with the efforts that led to that letter.

“I’m blown away at how this organic process has evolved into such a robust, holistic advocacy effort,” he said. “The inclusive and collaborative involvement of key neighborhood stakeholders is wonderful to see.”

Jordana Leeb is a longtime Concordia resident who is passionate about the neighborhood, its people and trees. She lives with her partner and newly adopted special needs dog. You can see her recent film about Concordia at TinyURL.com/DiaryOfAStreet.

By Karen Wells | CNA Media Team

The trees of Concordia University have stories. Those stories are about how Frank W.J. Sylwester – president of Concordia University from 1905 to 1946 – acquired an eclectic inventory of trees for the campus.

The grand Oregon White Oak (Quercus garryana) is the sentry on Luther Hall Green. That oak was about eight years old when the college, then high school, opened its doors. It was one of the original trees in the Douglas fir woods of east Portland.

Frank was passionate about trees. When the right of way for 28th Avenue posed a threat to the oak, he advocated for the tree to be spared.

He satisfied his yearning for connection to his Germanic ancestry by planting trees germane to Germany. In 1908 he planted European Linden (Tilia × europaea) seedlings from Berlin. He purchased and planted a Spruce (Picea) from Germany. A Correl Tree (Oxydendrum arboreum) is a gift to the campus from Sylwester.

In 1920 Frank gathered Red Oak (Quercus rubra) acorns from Vernon Park, now known as Alberta Park, and planted them on campus. He recalled much later in life, “Every one of those acorns produced a tree.”

In 1960, he saved a small Sequoia (Sequoiadendron) at a campus building construction site. He replanted it in a stand of Incense Cedars (Liborcedrus decurrens). In 1964 he traveled to central Oregon and brought back a Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) seedling for the campus.

In the beginning, the president’s home was part of the campus, just north of Elizabeth Hall. He surrounded it with trees from his travels – Redleaf maples (Acer Palmatum) and Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) to name two. He had an inventory of 59 trees sorted by common and scientific name divided into five, creating the Campus Tree Project.

That project was published in 1974, “Arbor Vitae,” with anecdotal tales and tidbits of Concordia University history.

Karen is a retired early childhood community educator, health and safety trainer.

By Karen Wells, CNA Media Team

Friends of Trees (FOT) is nationally recognized and locally known as the Portland metropolitan go-to resource for homeowners who want to plant trees. Working with the organization is hassle free, and the costs of the trees fit neatly into most household budgets.

Starting this month, and on most weekends through April, volunteers dressed for the weather are sent across Portland neighborhoods with twin goals of planting trees and building community.

Cheryl Brock is the FOT neighborhood coordinator for Concordia. She’s been a Concordia resident for nine years, seven of those years as a FOT volunteer. In the beginning, she contacted FOT for a tree for her home. She enjoyed getting to know the neighbor volunteers who dug the hole, set and planted her tree.

Inspired by her experience, she contacted FOT and offered to help with their tree planting events. Cheryl has never regretted getting involved. FOT’s core value of community engagement to improve livability resonates with her.

From the annual mid-March Concordia neighborhood tree planting event to sharing wholesome lunches with planting volunteers, to learning tree pruning, Cheryl thoroughly enjoys being part of the FOT team.

”It just feels good, the right thing to do,” she said.

Cheryl is one of the nearly 6,300 volunteers who, in the words of the FOT annual report, grow the mission “to inspire community stewardship of our urban forest by bringing people together to plant and care for urban trees and natural areas.”

Although substantial – FOT has planted 650,000 trees and native shrubs in the Willamette Valley since its inception in 1989 – it’s not the first effort in Portland to increase the tree population.

The history of community stewardship and tree planting here can be traced to the Olmsted Brothers’ plans of 1902 and the Albina Neighborhood Improvement Project (ANIP) of the 1960s.

The Olmsteds drafted plans for some of Portland’s neighborhoods, college campuses and public parks. Their plans linked parks and streets with tree-lined neighborhoods.

The ANIP was tasked with planting nearly 600 Kwanzan flowering cherries in a 20-block section of Albina, the present day Eliot neighborhood.

Many of these early plantings can still be seen between Humboldt and Fremont, and between Albina and Haight. The Kwanzan provide the spectacular spring blossom display of the Washington, D.C. mall.

Karen is a retired early childhood community educator, health and safety trainer. Reach her at 619.244.7892.

Editor’s note: Karen tapped many resources for this story on community tree planting. She shares those resources with you at ConcordiaPDX.org/trees.