Portland's October Arbor Day aims to help tree canopy

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- The City of Portland has been planting hundreds of trees to improve the city's tree canopy to help make it cooler in neighborhoods that haven't been as shaded in the past.

Hundreds of young trees are being given away this month to be planted in yards all across Portland. For the past 135 years, Portland has celebrated Arbor Day, which historically has been in April. But Portland's Arbor Day is in October -- and the main reason is the city's increasingly hot dry summers make it more difficult for trees planted in April to succeed.

"Our summers are getting longer and hotter and drier," said Nikhilesh Desai with Portland Parks & Rec's Urban Forestry. "In April here, it's not a great time to plant trees."

The cooler temps and wetter conditions in October make it a much better window for trees to take root and help increase the tree canopy.

On Saturday, people came to Glenfair Park in East Portland for PPR's Arbor Day 2024, to help plant new trees, get some free trees and learn about what trees do and how they help.

"We want to make trees, high quality trees, accessible to folks to plant in their yards, and have more canopy, more shade for everybody in Portland," said Molly Wilson with PPR's Urban Forestry. "This is our yard tree giveaway. This is our eighth year for the event."

Some of the kids who showed up got a birds-eye view by taking a ride in a bucket truck to the top of some trees.

The city will have to plant dozens of trees in a section of Northeast Portland after PPR said the contractor who was supposed to water them this summer didn't for a few weeks in the July heat. But, the city said, the public's help is need to grow the tree canopy.

"There are parts of our city that lack canopy and trees are very important aspect of our urban infrastructure," Desai said. "And they provide a lot of environmental services and a lot of public health services, too."

Wilson said this is the best time to plant them.

"If we get them in the ground now, the winter rains will really help the trees in that establishment process. So they're in the ground. They've been planted. They'll get to go through a winter where they're going to get a lot of, moisture and rain."