Keeping the City of Sisters green

The City of Sisters pays special attention to its trees and is an active participant in the Tree City USA program. Sisters' Urban Forestry Board recently awarded a certificate to Nicole Montalvo and her son Orry Abbenhuis for selecting the Tree of the Year. The award is one half of the Urban Forest Awards.

Nine-year-old Orry really likes trees, his mother reported, so she walked through Sisters with him to select a special tree as Sisters Tree of the Year.

"We like Sisters because it has so many different types of trees," Montalvo said. "We decided to pick a tree that's not a pine tree."

Montalvo and Orry chose a special cottonwood growing outside Sundance Shoes on East Cascade Avenue.

"It's special because it grows through the deck and people work their way around it," Montalvo said. "A lot of trees are taken down to get them out of the way, but this one was saved."

The other Urban Forest Award is for Citizen Forester and was awarded to Mike Burke, owner of Sisters Landscape Co. Burke received the award for donating trees, tree-planting supplies and labor for Arbor Day in 2009 and 2010.

Burke moved to Sisters 15 years ago because he felt it would be a good place to raise a family away from the big city.

"We visited several places, and the charm of Central Oregon appealed to me," Burke said. "We enjoyed a lot of the outdoors and the area had a chance for growth."

Burke landscaped City Hall, has worked with Little League, the rodeo, and built a chain link fence around the middle school. Sisters Landscape Co. also hauled over 40 loads of debris from around the football field.

"Phil Rerat built the arch by the football field," Burke said. "Many businesses donated to that project."

A landscaper for 39 years, Burke has landscaped about 2,500 projects through the years.

"We do weekly lawn maintenance, and we're going to aerate lawns," Burke said. "We've been keeping busy in construction in spite of the economy."