Coordinators Corner – June

A monthly message from Ben Thompson, Urban & Community Forestry Program Manager Greeting fellow tree advocates! Washington is known for its rainy weather, but this is getting a little ridiculous, don’t you think? I’m ready for summer.  Here at the DNR Urban & Community Forestry Program we have a lot of expectations for this summer, …

Faces of Urban Forestry: Drew Lyons

Drew Lyons recently joined the Washington State DNR Forest Resilience Division as a GIS Analyst. Drew will be working closely with the DNR Urban and Community Forestry Program by helping the program identify priority regions for the implementation of urban forestry activities, helping to standup a statewide Urban Forest Inventory & Analysis (UFIA) program, implementing …

The Urban Tree Canopy Assessment Toolkit

By Hannah Kett, Urban Program Director at The Nature Conservancy. This article is republished as it was originally posted on May 13, 2022. Trees help clean the water flowing into streams, rivers and Puget Sound, help purify the air people breathe, lower the temperature of surrounding neighborhoods—and so much more. As Puget Sound cities and …

Timely Tree Tips: Rainfall interception in urban areas

These large London plane trees along the waterfront in Poulsbo, WA help intercept and slow down rain water. This spring we have been encountering some extraordinary rainy weather. Since March we have been hearing about the rain setting records throughout Washington—for instance, in the entire month of June, Seattle usually averages 1.45 inches of rain. …

Urban Forestry in the News – Spring 2022

With so many developments happening within our own DNR Urban & Community Forestry Program over the last few months, we have been unable to share some of the great work completed by our urban forestry colleagues. This article is intended to share some of the most recent urban forestry news and developments with our Tree …

Coordinator’s Corner – May

By Ben Thompson, Urban & Community Forestry Program Manager Greetings to all my fellow tree advocates! Since the last edition of Tree Link my family and I moved into a “new” house after a lengthy renovation. It’s a lovely older home built in 1947 with mature landscaping and trees that were planted following the initial …

Urban Tree Canopy and Stormwater Management Handbook, Tours, and Toolkit

By Tara Luckie, Education and Outreach Program Manager at Snohomish Conservation District The Puget Sound region is experiencing an incredible amount of growth and with this surge in development comes more impervious surfaces, more surface water runoff, and significantly fewer trees. Not only does this change our landscape, it also results in the loss of …

Faces of Urban Forestry: Josh Petter

Name: Josh Petter Title: Urban Forest Planner, City of Burien Favorite Tree: Yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis), native to the northeastern U.S. It has subtle exfoliating bark that smells of wintergreen. It is a longer-lived birch and forms attractive groves in the mountains, perfect for skiing. What was your path to your current role as a …

Timely Tree Tips: Tree Owner’s Manual

Think back to the day you planted your latest tree. It may have been during Arbor Day, which recently passed in April, or during the fall planting season. You did your research to find the perfect planting spot for your perfect tree. You properly planted the tree, mulched around it and topped it off with …

Pop-up Forest creates a uniquely immersive experience in Tacoma

The City of Tacoma’s Urban Forestry team, Tacoma Tree Foundation, and partners were hard at work over the last several months creating an inspiring, interactive experience to help envision what the Tacoma Mall neighborhood’s built environment could look like with the addition of more trees. With 9% tree canopy cover in comparison to Tacoma’s 20% …

Coordinators Corner − April 2022

Happy Arbor Month everyone! It is April, which means blossoms and leaves are unfurling by the day, and area nurseries are bursting with trees waiting for permanent homes to bolster our collective urban forests. Every year the month of April provides us the wonderful opportunity to begin breaking out of our winter routines by appreciating …