Helping Portland’s trees live up to their full potential

Take a quick walk with us along SE 122nd Avenue to learn about the obstacles and opportunities for planting large shade trees along East Portland's canopy-sparse north-south arteries.

These silver lindens (Tilia tomentosa) in Columbia Park are examples of a large-form tree that, if allowed to reach its full potential, casts sorely needed summer shade.

Surviving American elms on this street in north Portland remind us how much cooler it is in the shade of tall, wide trees during our increasingly hot summers.

Will this Western red-cedar survive the demolition of the old house it shares a lot with should the replacement be a larger home, a duplex, or triplex?

Flexible rules on sidewalks are helping homeowners preserve large trees by allowing a bit more room for large, mature roots—developers take note: this can be done!

This strip, six feet wide and with no overhead powerlines could support a tree reaching over 50’ tall and shading pedestrians and cars.

Many Portland residents do not plant trees from fear of the costs to homeowners associated with maintaining them when they mature.

Current code provides no special protections for large but under 36-inch-diameter specimens of unusual species like this China fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) on private property.

What fate awaits this enormous black walnut (Juglans nigra) when the small house it shares a lot with is torn down to make way for duplexes and triplexes?

Lots such as this are prime targets for developers hoping to cash in on denser housing rules that allow them to build multiple housing units in formerly single-family neighborhoods, with trees like these European beeches receiving little protection against removal.

Large spruce as two houses are built where a ranch house once stood on NE 37th next to Fernhill Park.

10 by 15 feet – bigger than the minimum required for multi-unit housing. Spaces like this will end up holding a single small tree.

Narrow separations between newly built single-family row homes near NE Killingsworth are too small to grow a tree of any size.

Trees on properties like these in NE Cully are ripe targets for builders of multi-unit housing in former single-family-zones. When trees like the giant sequoia here go, so go the health and environmental benefits they provide

Building around a preserved silver maple to ensure it has adequate space, thus creating a precious amenity for residents.

This setback between new multiplex homes in Boise-Elliot precludes room for a tree; the impermeable surface will not help manage the more intense rain events climate scientists predict.

The front yards of these newer homes allow for only one tiny tree that, if alive in 50 years, will still be too short to shade buildings or streets.

An unusual but happy occurence: the growing space for this tree in a narrow curb strip expanded when the original sidewalk was replaced during construction of a new house.

A coast redwood on private property is helped by a pop-out sidewalk, but over time the tree will need more space to thrive. Let’s design with a tree’s future in mind.

The huge tulip tree providing southside house shade at NE 22nd and Knott was intact when this home was for sale in 2020.

Post-sale, in spring 2021, the tulip tree was approved for removal due to proximity to the structure.

What's happening on the ground and what's at risk of being lost.

Learn why changing Portland's codes and practices around preserving large trees and space for new ones is crucial to meeting our equity and climate goals and keeping Portland livable.