TACOMA – The number of trees at Wright Park has grown, adding to the century-old arboretum that delights and shades visitors.
Dozens of volunteers on Saturday planted 21 Garry Oaks, Frontier elms and Starlight Dogwoods as part of Green Tacoma Day, an annual service day that connects community to natural spaces.
“It’s important to be part of something that’s larger than ourselves,” said Desiree Kennedy, volunteer coordinator for Metro Parks Tacoma. “We connect with community and nature and put something in the ground that will be here long after us. We’ve benefitted from the shade and beauty of the trees, and we have the chance to do that for generations to come.”
Most of the plantings are meant to replace trees lost in recent years to disease, vandalism and storm damage. A grove of Garry Oaks was planted at the entrance near I and Division streets.
The new trees are also meant to boost the urban tree canopy in Wright Park, which is currently at 48 percent. A tree canopy assessment from 2021 showed 39 percent of the park was available for additional planting.
Across all park land, 68 percent is covered in tree canopy and 20 percent is available for planting.
Wright Park’s arboretum was established in 1886 when Charles B. Wright and the Tacoma Land Company donated 20 acres for a public park under the condition that at least 300 ornamental trees were planted within four years.
Nowadays, the 27-acre park includes more than 600 trees of about 145 different species. A self-guided tour booklet can be downloaded to teach visitors about historically significant champion trees like the red oak planted in 1903 in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Tacoma, or a giant sequoia planted in 1939 in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
Growing green spaces and tree canopy is an important goal for Metro Parks and partners like Tacoma Tree Foundation, whom we regularly collaborate with on plantings at parks.
Last year, Tacoma Tree Foundation distributed an impressive 2,917 trees and they are actively working to plant trees in lower-equity areas. With partnerships like this, Metro Parks is able to take a deeper look at possible planting areas and team up to enhance Tacoma’s urban tree canopy.
Thanks to a $110,000 grant from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, we are working on an Urban Forest Management Plan that will lay out where plantings are possible, when they should be done and how they could be funded over the next 20 years.
Metro Parks Tacoma stewards more than 1,000 acres of forest, which is 30 percent of Tacoma’s existing tree canopy.
“We wouldn’t be able to do this without the community’s support,” Kennedy said.
In addition to the 21 trees planted at Wright Park, volunteers on Green Tacoma Day also planted native species at Browns Point Playfield and expanded the pollinator prairie at Swan Creek Park by planting white oak saplings and native pollinating species.
