As the fall color season approaches, our thoughts naturally turn to trees.
Boston has about 36,000 street trees, and our parks hold thousands more. The city’s parks department and the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation, with the help of friends groups, care for park trees. Hurricane Irene did little damage to our trees. But the damage that was done was dramatic—elm trees more than 100 years old collapsing onto Beacon Street and in the Boston Common.
Bostonians get distressed when they see a tree come down, whether by a hurricane or humans. One reader said he was devastated in late July to see the stumps of two large elms being ground up in the Public Garden. Those were three Belgian elms afflicted with Dutch elm disease, said Liz Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden and Common. Those elms were planted in an allée more than a century ago, and Vizza pointed out the detriment of this appealing form of planting—when one or two trees fail, the whole design is compromised.
Vizza said the parks’ elms are tested regularly and injected with an expensive chemical cocktail that sounds rather like the treatment HIV patients receive. Like the HIV cocktail for people, the trees’ chemicals have prolonged the lives of many elms. The injection program costs about $100,000 a year. The Belgian elms have been until now largely free of the disease, but apparently that is changing.
The parks department and the Friends systematically replace trees with multiple varieties so a disease infecting one species won’t destroy the whole landscape.
If you want to learn about the trees in the Public Garden, the Friends have a book with photos and a map of some of the more popular trees, although the map may not be entirely accurate since a few years have passed since publication. Another resource for tree lovers will be a Friends program on October 5 at 6 p.m. at the Union Club on Park Street. Arborist Henry Davis, who has put in 40 years in the downtown parks, will speak on “The Future of Trees in the Public Garden, Boston Common and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.” You must join the Friends to attend, but with membership starting at $25, it’s cheap, and the event itself is free.
Street trees don’t have a friends group. After the city installs them, it doesn’t care for them except for the rare pruning. Parks Commissioner Antonia Pollak says the city is grateful to business owners and homeowners who care for the street trees. What she doesn’t say is that no one else will.
So it’s up to you if you want your home or business to look good and be a good neighbor.
The most basic way to help your tree is to water it slowly, deeply and regularly—about three gallons for small trees and 5 gallons for big ones when the soil is dry. Do it in early morning or after sunset. Spread mulch to keep in nutrients. Give your tree a bit of fertilizer in spring and mid-summer.
Even better is to put a fence around the tree to keep bicyclists from chaining their bikes to the tree trunk. Most of all, the fence keeps out dogs, who are disasters for trees. And then plant your tree pit with impatiens or such shade perennials as hosta, cranesbill or English ivy, which some people don’t like because it’s invasive. In a tree pit, however, it has nowhere to go.
Call the Mayor’s Hot Line at 617-635-4500 if you notice a tree is damaged, has broken branches, or was hit by a car or truck.
Some trees should be removed. Workmen took down diseased trees at the corner of Arlington and Beacon streets in the Public Garden and suddenly the beautiful Angel of the Waters statue by Daniel Chester French honoring George Robert White popped out.
Another tree I want to get rid of is the deformed oak that hides the State House when you stand at the Brewer Fountain in the Boston Common. It’s old, but one official, whom I won’t identify, suggested that we collect the acorns, take the tree down and auction off the acorns at a big party where all of Boston’s CEOs can compete for their manhood. At five or six hundred bucks an acorn, just think of the money we could raise to protect all the other trees.