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Dutch elm disease claims victim on the Common
By adamg on Mon, 01/12/2015 - 10:16am
The Boston Parks Department posted this photo of workers taking down a large American elm tree on the Common today because it's become infected with Dutch elm disease, a fungus spread by a beetle.
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Comments
I knew those mophead kids from liverpool....
would screw up Boston somehow
Why are we not planting new trees on the Common??
Seems almost everyday I see another tree being removed from the common, or being trimmed back to it's bare trunk.
Can anyone name a new tree that has been placed anywhere in the Common in the past 10 years, not including the alleyway between the fountain and statehouse?
Boylston St. path
was refurbished with benches and plantings in the past few years. The Friends of the Public Garden (they cover the Common, Public Garden, and Comm. Ave. Mall) along with the Park Dept. accomplish a lot with a limited budget including tree plantings, pruning, and disease control. I know of new trees planted in the Common in the past few years along the Beacon St. side.
But more funds are needed to maintain our parks so donating to the Friends or the Emerald Necklace Conservancy is a great thing to do.
Long-term plan?
Just a guess, but maybe the long term plan is to not replace trees to open up the park a bit? Most parks probably default towards more and more tree cover over time, which may be at odds with the original plan.
Tree
lives matter.
Je Suis l'Orme!
Je Suis l'Orme!
Plant a tree or die.
Or don't.
Poor old tree =( please replant!
One less shadow afflicting our citizenry with the rickets!
Possible protest
That's it. I'm tired of the damage this Dutch disease is doing to our beautiful trees, and I'm going to write to the mayor demanding that Deutschland be expelled from the U.N.
Why aren't the Dutch world
Why aren't the Dutch world leaders condemning this act of terrorism?
Blame the Dutch...
Blame the Dutch...
Some very old elms on the Common
A few years ago I heard a presentation by a naturalist, about some of the work that's being done with the elms on the Common and the Public Garden. Very close to the elm that was lost today is an elm that is considered to be the oldest known elm in an American public park, planted in 1813 if I remember correctly. As far as I can tell from the photo, the ancient elm is not the one that was just cut down; the very old one is just behind the Shaw/54th Regiment Memorial. The naturalist said that 200 years is about the natural life of a cultivated elm in a city park, even if there is no contact with Dutch Elm Disease.
In the late 1780s, John Hancock - who lived on what's now the west lawn of the State House - ordered a row of elms to be planted parallel to Beacon Street, across from his house. Those elms were closer to the street than the one that was just cut down, on the left side of the path shown in the photo (between the path and the fence). One of Hancock's elms was still standing in the early 1980s, but it isn't there today. It was gone by about 2000, but possibly several years before that - I don't know exactly when it came down.