Neighborhood Botany

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

This morning on my way to the T I saw landscapers as they were finishing cutting down a tree at the corner of Bay State and Mallet St. They cut it right to the stump. It had been a beautiful big old tree, as all of them are on Bay State. I don't know why it was cut, but it gave me a reminder that, yes, our trees are mortal and will one day all be gone. Wondering now if the city has any long-term plans about that.

Looking at the glorious oaks and maples in the Powderhouse park, a lot of those trees are some serious old. I don't know enough about botany to guess how old, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them began life 2 centuries ago. I read online (today) that oaks have a lifespan of 200-400 years, giving, um, plenty of time to figure out replacement strategies. Just wondering if there is a replacement plan of any kind.

Here's hoping a little sapling goes in at the corner of Bay State and Mallet...

Comments

[watercolorblue.livejournal.com]

Bizarre...I wonder what reason they had for cutting it down? Without background info, it seems like kind of a travesty.

BTW, that icon is adorable!

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I love Border Collies. :-)

I seriously wondered about the tree, because it had seemed perfectly healthy just this past fall. Maybe it had some sort of infestation that I didn't know about. It was on city property (that strip of grass on the other side of the sidewalk that I always knew as a "tree lawn" but nobody else seems to). And it wasn't one of the trees that created a sidewalk lump.

It just didn't feel right marching up to the landscapers with their chainsaws blazing and request an explaination. I was very curious though.

[frederic.livejournal.com]

The tree in front of our house got really sick (large parts of the tree were dead and covered with fungus) and the city cut it down. It took a long time to get a replacement sapling. It took our downstairs neighbor over a half dozen rounds of emails and phone calls and almost a year to get them to agree to putting in a replacement tree. We even offered to subsidize the costs ourselves and this didn't accelerate the process (I think the incessant nagging did).

So if you have time for a new hobby, keep pestering the city. It does pay off. We jumped from no priority to a 2 year wait list to less than a year.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Good work!

Interesting that they didn't take you up on your offer to subsidize. Maybe they're on contract with a certain nursery, or want control over the species that goes in. Glad you finally got your tree, though.

There's a sweet old lady who lives in the house where the tree was cut down. I should ask her if she wants help getting a new tree from the city.

[frederic.livejournal.com]

The person you want to contact first (well after the owner of the property) is Ron O'Meara in the DPW.

The city won't remove the root mass of any tree of any decent size so they'll have to find a spot near by (they paved over the spot and cut out a different part of the sidewalk).

Looking over my old emails, it literally took over a year and a half from complaining about the sick tree (much less getting it dealt with) to getting a new one.

Good luck!

[artemii.livejournal.com]

this isn't wholly related, but -- if you don't have a sidewalk tree in front of your place and you want one, you can petition the city to get one put in. i had friends that did that, and after a year or two (i don't remember which) the city came, cut out part of the sidewalk, and planted a young maple. the only requirement, if i recall correctly, is that you agree to water it yourself if necessary.

i don't remember if there's an application fee.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That's good to know! I do already have a tree, but I'll bet others will be interested.

Gotta love the 'Ville. "Everybody gets a tree."
:-)

[uberjay.livejournal.com]

Mew!

I really enjoy your userpic. :)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Mew backatcha! :-)

[ceo]

While I like having sidewalk trees, they do make the sidewalk less useful for wheelchair-using folks, especially after the roots start taking over the rest of the sidewalk.

(If I were to find a crew cutting down a big old maple, I would be highly tempted to say "Hey, could you leave the trunk in my driveway?" Of course, I should probably have some idea what it would cost to get it sawed into useful lumber first...)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Probably it would cost less than buying the finished lumber. Or you could have fun chopping it into firewood.

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

I doubt the ones in the park are that old. I believe it's over 100 to count as Old Growth, which gets some kind of EPA protection. I don't remember all the details now, but there was a large battle over cutting down some old growth forrest on Wachusett Mountain (in the Leominster area of central MA) about 6 years ago, because the Crowleys, the family that owns Wachusett Ski Area, wanted to cut it to put in new paths and the EPA wouldn't let them.

[simonbillenness.livejournal.com]

The city just planted a new tree in front of our house on Morrison Avenue.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

I believe that there is an actual city employee (or at least there used to be) at city hall who bears the title "City Arborist". I am pretty sure that s/he does make decisions about which species go where and such.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

City Arborist would be a very cool job. :-)

[ron_newman]

This week's issue of the Somerville News has a short article on page 2 about street trees and the city arborist, whose name is George Atkinson. The article isn't on the newspaper's web site (at least, not yet), so you'll have to pick up a paper copy.

Tree City

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

Apparently, Somerville takes it's trees seriously, or once did. From Wikipedia: "The city also has a wealth of trees on almost every street, which allowed Somerville, for several years, to earn the moniker 'Tree City USA' from the National Arbor Day Foundation."

Re: Tree City

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Hey! *That* explains that sign at Broadway and Rt. 16, on the Arlington border! I've always wondered.

Re: Tree City

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I was told by someone who's been around a long while that way back when, Francesca Ave had so many elm trees, you could hardly see the sky, but then some elm disease ran rampant through the area.

I don't know if that's entirely true (I've heard many interesting stories from the townies :) but I can easily believe there were more trees, in any case.

Re: Tree City

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

American Elm trees used to be incredibly popular as street trees because of their uniform, vase-like shape. Virtually all American Elm trees were killed by Dutch Elm Disease, with only a few surviving, such as heavily-medicated specimens on the U.S. Capital grounds and a very few solitary monsters that seem to have a natural resistence to the disease. Literally tens of millions of trees were lost in the course of a couple of decades. There are programs to try and breed a resistant form of the tree, but it hasn't been terribly successful. I've seen amazing pictures of mid-century urban streets that, in just a few years, went from being lush "can't see the sky" places to having no trees at all. That's one of the reasons cities no longer plant just one species of tree. The same thing happened to the king of North American trees--the American Chestnut, and it's happening now to the Dogwood. So I'd put money on the old-timers being right about Francesca Ave.

Re: Tree City

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Well okay, then, but I still don't buy the rats as big as cats. :)

Re: Tree City

[brownturkey.livejournal.com]

The Francesca Ave. story is true. There are still a few Francesca Ave. residents that grew up on the street. They say they could play ball on the street and not get wet when it rained from the thick coverage of the Elms.

The city will let you subsidize the planting of a tree - but you have to use their contractor to purchase and plant the tree. They also have specific trees that they plant based on disease, drought, pollution resistence. They can't plant a tree in the same spot as a large tree recently cut down due to the old root system. They have a public hearing once a year on trees that are slated to be cut down because of disease or because a resident requested it. You can go and object to a tree being cut down, but a rejection must also be made in writing. One letter can save a tree, but Mayor Joe can overrule if he is appealed to do so.

[ah42.livejournal.com]

In the wild (and maybe in a well-cared for park) an oak may have that lifespan, but in the city, especially in sidewalks, I've heard numbers ranging from 8 to 38 years for the average lifespan of a tree (not specific to oaks). The numbers for 38 years go along with an 8-foot-wide planting bed for the trees, whereas 8 years apply to the style of sidewalk beds that are common around Somerville: just enough space to plant a tree... barely. The only hope for a tree to live longer is for the roots to escape the "vault" created and expand (under how many feet of sidewalk, compacted soil, with poor nutrients, high salt concentrations, and little moisture and oxygen?) to find open lawn area.