NE Ainsworth Street boasts a living tree library, the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum. You can explore it right from the sidewalk in the Woodlawn, Vernon, and Concordia neighborhoods of northeast Portland, Oregon. And you can help out in the summer by volunteering to adopt a young tree between NE 15th Avenue and NE MLK Blvd for summer watering.
From their website: “When the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum started in 2005, there were only six species of trees represented in the Ainsworth medians in just four genera: maples, ash, oak, and beech. Today, that near monoculture has been greatly diversified. As we catalogued in the Tree Library, there are now 46 species in 32 genera in 21 families in the median alone! Where there were once only broadleaf deciduous trees, there are now evergreen broad leaf and conifer trees, and even conifers that drop their needles each autumn […] The Linear Arboretum is unusual in extending for over a mile along a residential street. A boon for visitors is that featured trees can be located by house address. […] Ainsworth is easily reached by public buses, bike or automobile. It can also be navigated by wheelchair, being mostly flat. Trees in the median can be viewed from wheelchair-accessible sidewalks on Ainsworth’s north and south sides.”
More of how this arboretum came to be is here.
And an interesting Concordia News article about tree replacement in the arboretum is here.
