Time to get down and dirty with free seminars and workshops that give hands-on opportunities to learn how to garden naturally and safely this season Buds are sprouting, flowers are blooming and the grass is growing again—spring is here and Metro wants to help residents get outside and get growing. Throughout the summer, Metro and the Oregon State University Extension Service are teaming up with local organizations and more...

Southeast Portland is about to become the beneficiary of a cool, community-based concept that is finding its way around Portland, and into cities across the country. Plans are underway for an early May opening of the Southeast Portland Tool Library, which will be permanently housed within a 25’ by 17’ storage room at St. David’s Episcopal Church on the corner of SE 28th and Harrison Street. For those unaware more...

Spring is coming and many of us are thinking about new gardening and landscaping projects. If you’re in that group, why not consider a project that will help restore and protect rivers and streams while adding beauty and value to your property? If you live in Portland, creating a rain garden, installing an ecoroof, planting trees and other projects to manage stormwater runoff on your property can save you money. You can get more...

Solarize Northeast, a volunteer-driven, community-based volume purchasing project for solar electric panels organized by Portland's Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods (NECN), expects to create over 20 new green jobs in the Portland area in the coming months. The project is designed to simplify the process of going solar as well as bring significant cost reductions through volume purchasing. Enrollment for the group purchase more...

Even though it’s been cold, wet, and icy in recent days, Northeast neighborhoods are abuzz with the news of going solar as Solarize Northeast prepares to launch its solar panel installation project this month. Modeled after the wildly popular Southeast Solarize Portland project that debuted in September 2009 (see our previous stories: Going Solar Doesn't Have to be a Solo Endeavor and Power to the People), a group of more...

On Halloween, Neighborhood Notes hosted our 5th Annual Howl-O-Ween photo shoot in conjunction with the trick-or-treating event hosted by Isobel's Clubhouse. Each year, we set a spooky scene and shoot not-so-scary—try adorable—photos of neighborhood kids, which parents can download (for free) as a keepsake. The 2009 Howl-O-Ween photos are now ready for download (here), but we thought we'd share them with more...

In an analysis of homes sold east of the Willamette River, a new report says street trees can add an average of $8,870 to sales prices and reduce time-on-market by almost two days. The report, which will be published in Landscape and Urban Planning, is the first of its kind to examine the "effect of urban trees on the housing market" by explicitly focusing on street trees. Yesterday at the National Arbor Day more...

I have said before that the lessons of our grandparents could really come in handy now that our gross economic negligence has come back to bite us in our entitled behinds (NOTE: I am making a big generalization for effect here, so don't get upset if you don't feel that you're in any way responsible for the Fine Mess the U.S. finds itself in). It seems that others feel that way, too, that a return to the ways of our much more...

When the rain becomes more consistent and the soil starts to give beneath your boot, it is officially tree planting season for the Pacific Northwest. Friends of Trees, a local nonprofit that has planted 375,000 trees and native shrubs in the past two decades, offers 8- to 12-foot tall nursery trees, delivered, for only $25-49. To order trees, homeowners in the Lents and Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhoods need to create an more...

I love a hardware store, a real hardware store, with walls of nails and washers tucked away neatly in drawers, rows of gardening implements, and shelves loaded with power tools. My garden and house have always been works in progress, too, and I love doing as much of the work as I can on my own. Always on the look out for helpful resources, I tracked down Tom Thompson, who is also excited about such things. He's been a contractor more...