The beech tree in our Georgiana Smith Memorial Gardens is perhaps the best known tree in the Hood River. Its popularity is being recognized as a City of Hood River heritage tree on Monday, May 16, which is National Love a Tree Day.
The public is invited to join Mayor Paul Blackburn and library director Buzzy Nielsen at 3 p.m. as they tie a ribbon around the beech tree’s massive trunk.
The heritage tree program is one focus of the city’s Tree Committee, a citizen advisory committee to the City Council and City staff. Heritage trees are ones accessible to the public and healthy. They are trees that amaze us and are as Oregon Travel Experience states: “silent sentries to the passage of time.” The library’s beech tree “has been there at least 100 years,” Buzzy said. “And it seems like every day I get somebody telling me it’s their favorite tree.”
If you have a favorite tree you’d like to nominate for heritage tree recognition or if you are interested in being on the tree committee, contact Mayor Blackburn at Paul.Blackburn@cityofhoodriver.com or (541) 386-1488.