Friends of Trees, now in its 21st year, recently celebrated its 400,000th planting - Vancouver, WA

Friends welcome trees to the city | The Columbian

Unrelenting rain soaked a group of Evergreen High School students Saturday morning as they stood along 155th Avenue watching the proper technique for planting a tree.

“I do realize it’s raining,” event coordinator Jesse Batty told the students. “For people, this is not so good. But for trees, it’s great.”

The 15-foot-tall nursery-grown ash is now dormant, so the warm winter rain will encourage root growth as the tree adapts to its permanent home between the road and a neighbor’s backyard fence.

Volunteers ultimately planted 82 street trees on both sides of this four-block-long stretch through the Summerfield Homes subdivision. The city’s Urban Forestry Department will arrange to water the trees for the next couple of summers, in the latest effort to improve Vancouver’s urban tree canopy.