EVANSTON TREE RINGS
Giving urban trees a voice
One of the grandest things about cities are our urban forests. From the witness oaks standing guard along our lakes to the great old elms arching over our campuses, city trees around the world are painstakingly cared for by city arborists, homeowners, and other tree-lovers.
But when was the last time you stopped to look up at a tree—or teach a child its name? Most of us have some degree of ‘plant blindness,’ the natural bias that makes people gush over a Labrador retriever but walk right past a flowering catalpa. And so every day city dwellers of all ages—children, college students, adults—miss an opportunity to connect with their thriving and spectacular urban forest.
We want to change that. We have developed a simple, beautiful, and low-cost technique for labeling parkway trees and giving them a more prominent place in people’s lives. The easy-to-read labels we call “Tree Rings”—elegantly arching tree names painted on sidewalks—are designed to spark delight and turn every walk through your neighborhood into a stroll through a botanic garden.
2026 Evanston tree ring project
In the summer of 2026, with a small grant from Evanston’s Love Your Block program, a small brigade of family and friends fanned out to label hundreds of trees across the city. First we designed custom stencils for the 20 most common trees in Evanston. Then we discovered how much practice it takes to paint street stencils. And then we got to work on some state-sponsored graffiti.
Want to see tree rings on your block or in your city? Get in touch!
