City of Portland, OR

04/16/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/16/2025 07:15

Planting Success in the Urban Forest

Blog Post
Tree planting coordinator Mari Aviles helps the City's Urban Forestry Tree Planting and Establishment program move closer to its goal of planting 10,000 trees each year.
Published
April 16, 2025 5:51 am

Look around. We live in an urban forest. The City of Portland has 218,000 trees on streets, 1.2 million trees in parks, and 2.9 million trees on private property. But it takes hard work to protect and grow this incredible legacy. That's where Mari Aviles comes in. As tree planting coordinator for Urban Forestry, she helped lead the Free Street Tree Plantingprogram, which nurtures thousands of neighborhoodtrees every year. She also helped the Cityrecruit more minority- and women-owned tree firms and has trained field crews in both English and Spanish. She was recently honored for her work with an award from Oregon Community Trees and the Oregon Department of Forestry.

How did you get into planting trees? My sister worked for a nonprofit in Indiana, which is where we're from. She encouraged me to join a youth tree care program. It was a great summer job. Then I went to college and learned about wildlife science and natural resources. I worked for that nonprofit for a couple of years and then came to Portland in 2020.

How many trees does the Cityplant every year? My gosh. Thousands. But it's not just planting. We also help the trees get established. In the urban environment, trees need a little TLC, so we do watering, weeding, proper mulching, community outreach.

Is there such a thing as improper mulching? Yes, mulching seems like an easy thing to do, and it's really important for retaining moisture and warmth. But if it gets piled up around the trunk, that can damage the trunk and invite pests and pathogens. And if grass starts growing there, people will come along with lawnmowers and weed trimmers and those can hurt the tree, too.

What lessons have you learned from planting trees? First, trees are resilient. With the right support, they can succeed even in a harsh urban environment. Second, planting trees is definitely a team effort! But mainly I've learned that our mature trees are our urban forest's most valuable asset. Soit's important to take care of them.