The South End's Giants

     Within just a few blocks of each other, in Newburyport's South End there exist some of the oldest and largest trees in the city. They had to be planted over 200 years ago, now nearing the end of their lifespan. I wanted to capture a few of them before their leaves filled in and covered up the magnificence of their gigantic bare limbs, or before they suffered a sudden fate in a catastrophic storm.

Harrison and Water Street

 I think of trees as the lungs of our city. On a much smaller scale, they don't look all that different! One hundred and fifty-seven  severely declining trees were removed last year and The National Grid is planning to take down more trees on Ocean Avenue, as well as 43 in Newbury which unfortunately   present a hazard to the power lines. Replacing trees is not done on short money and not exactly a quick fix either.  But I feel encouraged by the progress slowly being made thanks to the Tree Commission. There is currently a request before City Council to appropriate another ten thousand dollars which would be enough to cover the purchase and planting cost for twenty-five additional street trees this year.
     Please like us on our Facebook page, Friends of Newburyport Trees. We will post updates and shout outs for upcoming volunteer needs. Thank you!

Oak Street

Barton Street

Bromfield Street

Bromfield Street

Purchase Street

Madison Street

Marlboro Street

Other publications by Kim Kudym:
Letters From Apizaco, young adult memoir of experience as high school exchange student living in 1976 Mexico as told through letters home and journal entries
From The Outside, Looking In: Middleton Prison
Walking With Dogs in Greater Newburyport

New Trees in Town

     To go with those beautiful new sidewalks some Newburyport streets have finally been getting, several other streets will see new trees. This spring, members of the Tree Commission will be planting fourteen different varieties of  Cherry, Maple, Gingko, Elm, Hornbeam, Oak, Honeylocust and Ivory Silk Lilac Trees on Fair,  Kent, Merrill, Forrester and the corner of Washington and Olive   Street. Three trees will be planted on Oak Street and twenty between 25-361 High Street. Two Adopt-A-Trees and one Memorial Tree are to be planted in additional locations.
     Diseased and dead trees are coming down faster than they are getting replaced but we are doing our best! For more specific information on which species and variety will be planted on your street, please like us on the Friends of Newburyport Trees Facebook page and one of us will be happy to post that information.Click here to like us

This variety of Cherry Tree will be planted this spring on Merrill Street.   

Click here to see
tree wrapped around wire on High Street before it came down

Sustainable Christmas Trees?

Potted Christmas trees waiting for their forever homes!

For those of you that celebrate the holiday and spend good money on freshly cut trees, why not consider a living Christmas tree this year? You could invest a little more for one that you could later use to improve your landscape, serve as a wind barrier, provide shade, privacy and make the memory of Christmas 2016 last for years to come. There is an organization in California that rents potted Christmas trees. In fact, you can rent the same one, year after year. They even deliver and pick up. I'm not aware of any such business here in Massachusetts, but the living tree concept seems to be catching on. ClickRenting Potted Christmas trees Folks in Canada also appear to be ahead of the game:http://www.evergrowchristmastrees.ca

A Norfolk Pine, one of my living Christmas trees. This one stays indoors year round.

     Since we haven't had a good freeze, now is a good time to dig a hole twice the size of the rootball of your selected evergreen and fill it with mulch until you are ready to plant it after the holiday. Make sure you pick a variety that grows well in our climate. Look around your neighborhood to see what is thriving well and buy a landscape grade specimen in a five to fifteen gallon can. In between transfers from the nursery to your house, and the house to the yard for planting allow a couple of days for the tree to acclimate to the temperature change by storing it in the garage, shed or porch. You can put it in some sort of tub or galvanized container with about two inches of gravel. To keep it evenly moist, spread crushed ice across the top of the rootball and use a rod or pipe to make sure the water level is no higher than the gravel base. While indoors, it should not be placed near any heat vent or the fireplace.
     Your tree should not be kept in your warm home for more than ten days. Plant it right after the holiday, hopefully on a mild day, by putting the rootball into the hole, removing the burlap and backfilling with the soil. Tap it down, give it a good soaking and cover it well with mulch. If you are planting it where there is little wind block, consider putting up some sort of protective barrier to get it through the first winter. If you'd rather not keep the tree, make arrangements to donate it to a local park or contact your favorite group in town, Friends of Newburyport Trees!
     As always, we welcome your donations and consideration to purchase a tree in the memory or honor of a loved one. Send to Box 1155, Newburyport, MA 01950 or visit FONT here.

According to This Old House, the Nordmann  Fir is a good choice for the Northeast region.

Happy Holidays from Kim, Jean, Jane, Hugh and Cris!
   

November 2016 Tree Update

So far this year, Newburyport has lost 132 street trees as all were deemed high hazard by our Tree Warden, Wayne Amaral. Additionally, there are two trees almost directly across from each other on High Street near Twomey Funeral Home that are leaning so severely over the road that they will need to be removed. One is a Northern White Ash that tends to learn towards the light naturally but this year with the stress of the drought, it is now leans at even more precarious angle. The tree across from it is a Maple. Fortunately, despite the horrific conditions this summer, we lost none of our new street trees to the drought thanks to the watering efforts of the contractor and extension into November.

Soon to be removed near Twomey's Funeral Home!

Another recently planted High Street tree met its demise in a car accident. Someone drove up onto the sidewalk, ran over the tree before taking out a huge section of the wrought iron fence in front of the old convent adjacent to the Immaculate Conception Church on Green St. Branches were broken off the top, bark gouged out on the trunk and the rootball was partially uprooted. The Tree Warden will have it replaced.

This High Street tree will be replaced after damaged sustained from a car than lost control, ran it over before taking out a section of the fence behind it.

Fence destroyed in front of the old convent at the corner of High and Green Street.

Trying to keep up with the above losses, the Tree Commission, Department of Public Works and Friends of Newburyport Trees are working collaboratively behind the scenes. As reported in the Daily News, twenty-four more Princeton elms were planted after the completion of the new sidewalks on Green Street, adding to the six that were planted earlier this Fall. The Princeton elms are a hybrid specially bred to resist Dutch elm disease. Two trees were also planted on Merrimack Street on the right hand side just before approaching the round-about near the Chain Bridge.

New trees on Merrimack Street approaching the round-about near the Chain Bridge

Thirty new trees now line Green Street

One of the new Elms planted this month on Green Street after sidewalk work completed

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Plans are in the works for two trees to go in front of the Five Cents Savings bank on State Street, another on Forrester, and this Spring the old Willow stump next to the Bartlet Mall pond will be replaced with a memorial tree, a Copper Beech donated by the Kudym Family in memory of Don Kudym in hopes that it will provide much needed shade for the existing benches on hot summer days.

The stump of old Willow behind the benches will be replaced this Spring with a Copper Beech

     The Horticultural Society has donated four more Cherry Trees to join the hardy Cherry sapling planted this Spring, thanks to the generosity of the Eigerman Family. It should be spectacular some day for the next generation when these trees reach maturity and their blossoms' reflection appear in  the pond below!

An example of a Copper Beach at full maturity as seen on High Street 

Also scheduled for Spring 2017 planting are twenty trees along High Street and nine more throughout the city, all funded by the Bromfield Grant. The Department of Public Works is looking into funding trees on any city streets while they are undergoing construction, except for Water Street where the narrow sidewalks unfortunately leave no room.

Jane Niebling, FONT member is trying for a grant from a local bank to purchase trees and do some attractive landscaping at the triangle in front of the now demolished Famous Pizza. The Community Preservation Commission denied our request for $17.000 this year so this project is on hold. We can thank the CPC however for the trees we now have on Green Street. They allocated CPA funds six years ago but the planting had to be delayed for the sidewalk completion.

Triangle in front of the now demolished Famous Pizza in need of attractive landscaping

For information on how you can contribute to Friends of Newburyport Trees to support our future tree planting projects, you can contact anyone of us: Jane Niebling, Cris Crispin, Hugh Kelleher, Kim Kudym or Jean Berger. Or visit www.Fontrees.org

The Hidden Life of Trees

Maudslay State Park courtesy of Sarah Pflaum

     If you are looking for a holiday gift for a treehugger friend or family member, consider buying The Hidden Life of Trees by  Peter Wohlleben.  National Public Radio interviewed the author last month ( click NPR interview with author )   Many of us choose to live in Newburyport not just because of its historical charm and proximity to the ocean but for the sense of community absent in so many other towns and cities in Massachusetts. We have close knit neighborhoods, walkable streets, establishments you can visit where you are likely to see people you know. It's  a town with a very high level of civic engagement.  According to Wohlleben, trees also connect with one another through an underground fiber optic system of sorts and support each other's growth and well-being, much like strong social ties do for all of us. As we enter an era of continued extreme and unpredictable weather, we may someday need to share commodities  and even house one another in the aftermath of a disastrous future storm. Even our own survival may depend on the communities we have created.
     The following excerpt from page 3 sums it up well. "But why are trees such social beings? Why do they share food with their own species and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors? The reasons are the same as for human communities: there are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest. On its own a tree can not establish a consistent local climate. But together, many trees create an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water, and generates a great deal of humidity.  And in this protected environment, trees can live to be very old. To get to this point, the community must remain intact no matter what. If every tree were looking out for only itself, then quite a few of them would never reach old age.  Regular fatalities would result in many large gaps in the tree canopy, which would make it easier for storms to get inside the forest and uproot more trees. The heat of summer would reach the forest floor and dry it out. Every tree would suffer."
   Other recommended tree related readings from your Newburyport Tree Commission and Friends of Newburyport Trees members that would also make excellent holiday gifts are Urban Forests by Jill Jones; The Long, Long Life of Trees by Fiona Stafford; A Natural History of N.American Trees by Donald Curls Beattie and The Tree by John Fowles.  If you are tired of getting the ugly sweater every year, you might even ask your family members to make a charitable gift to FONT instead, or consider donating a Memorial Tree to honor a loved one.  Learn how on our website at www.fontrees.org.  Donations can be sent to FONT, P.O. Box 1155, Newburyport, MA 01950.

Trees in Trouble

   Due to a disconnect between city departments, the majority of the forty-three new trees planted at the Community Senior Center are in serious distress, either dying or already dead. Somehow, a plan was never put in place to see to it that the trees would be watered throughout the summer. Any new street trees planted by the Tree Commission are automatically put into the budget to be watered weekly for a period of two years, the necessary time to establish  an adequate root system so that the trees can ultimately be self-sufficient even in times of drought. However, trees planted under contract at city buildings fall under a different jurisdiction. Over one hundred  new trees at the Bresnahan Elementary School have also been neglected all summer long.  The Senior Center tree situation has now been rectified, the trees have been wrapped with Gator Bags and will be watered weekly for the remainder of the summer.  There is no known plan to water the trees at the Bresnahan School.
     Unfortunately, many of these trees are beyond saving and will need to be replaced. The Tree Commission hopes to be consulted in the future on city projects so that they can collaborate with city officials and developers with some advanced planning to prevent a similar fate.

Dying tree in front of the Senior Community Center

Dying tree at the new Bresnahan

Senior Center Tree near Bresnahan 

Brand new trees struggling at the Bresnahan

Attempt to save this Senior Center tree with a Gator Bag

Cedar near Bresnahan tennis courts

Unlike the trees at the Bresnahan and Senior Center, this Bartlett Mall sapling's watering needs were met by the Tree Commission and has survived nicely during one of the hottest and driest summers on record.

     In other tree related business, the Tree Warden reports that as of Aug 1, eighty-five high hazard trees have been removed already this year, with another fifteen to go. The norm for tree removal per year in Newburyport is fifty to sixty but there has been a backlog of orders from the last three years that are just getting taken care of now. Look for Fall tree planting on Green Street after sidewalk construction is completed. Friends of Newburyport Trees continues to seek out grants and donations to fulfill its goals for new plantings at the gateways to the city on both ends of High Street.
    Donations to Friends of Newburyport Trees are tax deductible and can be sent to FONT, Box 1155, Newburyport, MA 01950.

Tree Hugging at Olde Fashioned Sunday

Friends of Newburyport Trees was available at Olde Fashioned Sunday with educational leaflets about the non-profit's efforts to restore Newburyport's urban forest. Tree shaped lollipops were given away to children after they either answered a tree trivia question correctly, created a poem about a Bartlett Mall tree or chose a tree to hug for a photo. 

Cat girl hugs her favorite tree at Bartlett Mall 

Which country has a whole tree displayed on its flag? How much of the U.S is forested? What temperature difference can there be underneath the shade of a tree from the direct sunlight? In what state does the Pacific Yew Tree grow from which the powerful cancer-fighting drug Taxol is collected? Such were the examples of trivia asked of the kids in exchange for a tree-shaped lollipop. 

Friends of Newburyport Trees volunteers display Newburyport's Tree City Award  while distributing tree-shaped candy to curious kids.

The rain didn't keep everyone away! Crowds moved in later in the day when the skies cleared.

Three friends with Tree pops