Diagnosing Tree Death

I walked regularly by them when they first graced the street. They would give cachet to the street. They didn’t. They died.

At first they thought the trees along Toronto’s Mink Mile died because they were planted at the wrong time.

The dead London plane trees, mostly located on the block between Yonge and Church, died because they were planted at the wrong time of year, against the advice of city arborists, following numerous construction delays and a strike. The Globe and Mail counted several more dying or dead street trees still standing west of Yonge, a few as far west as Avenue Road.

The Globe and Mail now reports

The first set of trees [London planes] died because a contractor used a low-quality fill that trapped salt while preventing the roots from growing beyond the root ball. Construction crews are now pulling up the dead trees by their trunks so they can suck out the backfill and replace it with appropriate soil.

The London plane trees have been replaced by disease-resistant elms and Kentucky coffee trees. A new generation of walkers and passers-by may never know what the designers had intended.

All this in a city that prides itself on its tree canopy.

And so for day 1323
28.07.2010