La Grande Earns 36th Consecutive Tree City USA Honor, Growth Award

La Grande has held Tree City USA status for 36 consecutive years, but the recognition the Arbor Day Foundation added this cycle sets it apart from every other municipality in Oregon: city forestry officials say La Grande has received more Growth Awards than any other Oregon city in the program's history.

The Growth Award, which recognizes communities that go beyond minimum program standards through advanced tree care, public outreach, and innovative forestry projects, accompanied the city's 2025 Tree City USA designation. Qualifying for the base designation requires a city to maintain a tree board or department, enforce a tree-care ordinance, spend at least $2 per capita annually on community forestry, and hold a formal Arbor Day observance.

La Grande clears those thresholds through its Urban Forestry Division and Parks and Recreation programs. What lifts the city to Growth Award status, according to urban forester Anna Lindquist, is expanded volunteer engagement, new planting and maintenance plans, and a three-year grant from the Oregon Department of Forestry that specifically targets three low-canopy neighborhoods. Lindquist took over from Teresa Gustafson, who retired in December 2025 after 19 years with the city, and inherited a program that annually aims to plant at least 100 trees through the "Grow La Grande!" initiative, while recycling wood chips to mulch more than 500 trees across the city.

Those trees are not decorative. City officials frame La Grande's urban canopy as infrastructure: it reduces cooling costs for residents through summer heat, filters street-level pollutants, supports wildlife habitat, and adds value to properties within reach of established street trees. The ODF grant pushes those benefits into the neighborhoods where canopy is currently thinnest and heat accumulates hardest.

The City Council will present the 2026 Arbor Day proclamation at its April 1 meeting, the first formal step in a spring calendar built around the recognition. Fourth-grade Arbor Day poster contest entries are on display at Cook Memorial Library through April. On April 7 at 5:30 p.m., the Urban Forestry Division will host "What's Wrong with My Tree?", a practical class for residents dealing with troubled trees on their own property. A block party at Greenwood Elementary on May 2 closes out the spring slate.