Potential Solutions to Prevent Further Loss of Village Trees

Trees dying along Village streets was a topic of discussion at the Tree & Landscape Commission meeting on November 10, 2009.

Ann Bonner, the new local Urban Forestry liaison from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) was a guest speaker at the meeting.  About 40 percent of the trees along Village streets are maples, and Commission members have noticed that several are dying.  Some of this could be due to the age of the tree, but Commission members wondered if some other factor was in play.  Commission Member Lyn Kisher stated that several Sugar Maples are starting to die.

ODNR’s Ann Bonner noted that the Village is not alone in seeing its Sugar Maples die.  The entire Eastern United States is seeing Sugar Maples in decline and, in fact, the syndrome is called Sugar Maple Decline.  This phrase indicates that foresters are noticing the problem, but a cause for Sugar Maples dying has not yet been identified.   

Separate from this problem, Ms. Bonner noted generally that there are two major problems for urban trees, especially those along the roadway: first, salt exposure from winter road salting and, second, compaction of the soil.  Ms. Bonner raised a couple suggestions to help the trees.

First, Ms. Bonner suggested the use of lime to sweeten the soil.  She said that adding lime around the trees does nothing to adversely impact ground water, but adding lime will help the health of the trees, and it also will  “green up” the trees during the summer time.

Second, the trees would benefit from soil aeration.  The typical forest environment for trees is to have softer, fluffier soil around them with lots of microbes and animals recycling the nutrients. In contrast, many urban settings have more compacted soil around the trees caused, for example, by lawn mowers going over the grass around the tree roots.  Also, trees in urban settings are exposed to potentially harmful chemicals and weed killer sprayed on lawns around the trees.  To bring the trees closer to their natural setting, both aerating the soil and adding organic material around the trees should help.

During the meeting, Ms. Bonner suggested other tree varieties that might be more salt tolerant. For example, the Norway maple is noted to be more salt tolerant. However, the Norway Maple is not native to this area and does not live as long as the Sugar Maple.

Don Hostetler, the chair of the Tree & Landscape Commission, stated that the Village is experimenting with another Maple variety, the Paperbark Maple.  This can be an excellent tree under power lines, and the trees have a pretty bark.  However, the downside to this tree variety is that it rarely gets above 15 feet in height, so it will never match the size and grandeur of the Sugar Maple. 

Separately, Tom McCray from AEP noted that AEP took down two trees on South Pearl Street, another on Prospect Street by the Village offices, and trees on Broadway by Monemoy House.   He said that Asplundh is currently trimming trees in the Township near Loudon Street.  After that is done, Asplundh will be coming to the Village to begin its tree trimming around power lines.