Montreal does some things well (ie: policing protests, lots of practice now) but others less so. Every year the city's trees get plagued by these suckers that sap the growth out by sprouting from the trunk. Workers have to get on them fast and remove them, but never do. Trees die young and never amount to much due to this neglect.
Compare our tree management to other cities like Buenos Aires, where areas like the amazing Palermo (think Greene Ave+Laurier Ave x 100) are rendered beautiful with finely-tuned arboreal splendor. I've interviewed the head of Montreal's tree team and he's passionate, particularly about the possible return of Elms to the cityscape but I think we've still got a long way to go to catch up on other cities.
Elm trees! I grew up thinking they were all dead. No! It turns out there are some magnificent specimens from the old days still around. There are newer ones but it takes a while for an elm to reach magestic glory, so there are very few of the mega-elms around. I have been searching them out, and the tree best I know of are
ReplyDeleteCharlevoix and Wellington in Verdun (described in the Forets de montreal blog), Jarry Park (right out in the middle of the park), and at Graham blvd in TMR, near the Acadie/Jean Talon intersection.
The Elm in TMR is AMAZING.
Interestingly, go further north/east in canada and there are lots more mature elms. Plains of Abraham in Quebec city is plein of them.
Other tree trivia: many trees in Outremont have cables holding the main trunk branches together so they don't sway too much and presumably break.
I've also been searching for Mtl's biggest tree. There is an amazing cluster of giant cottonwood trees in Parc laFontaine's SE section in an open field near the tennis courts. These giant trees amaze and thrill me.
CDN has several good mature elms. Two in parc Kent (with a plaque marking either their planting or dedication after the fact) on the Kent side behind the baseball diamond, another big one on Decelles between place Decelles and Ellendale, and a couple mid-sized ones on Decelles south of Côte-Ste.-Catherine, opposite College Jean-Brebeuf. Several smaller ones nearby I've spotted, too. They will always manage to start seedlings before they get Dutch Elm Disease; the problem is that they never reach that full multi-decade age where they can shade entire streets, unless they're somewhere sheltered by buildings or whatnot so that the bugs that carry the disease can't find them. (Or on a distant island - Nantucket still had some big ones the last time I visited, 20-odd years ago.) I've been told the elms in Quebec City were the beneficiaries of a concerted effort to preserve them.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, there seems to be a trend among city Public Works employees and those of some other suburbs to not replace already dead or diseased trees once they have fallen or been cut down--particularly in our few-remaining forested areas such as within the so-called "bird sanctuary" behind the Westmount Lookout--which has essentially become an (illegally-unleased) dog-run for local well-heeled yet irresponsible pet owners.
ReplyDeleteOnce numerous Lombardy poplar trees and weeping willows have become diseased and have died as well, never to be replaced.
In some of Montreal's parks, stumps have been left to rot under swarms of carpenter ants when they used to be properly dug up and removed completely.
Furthermore, I have seen with my own eyes some of our recent immigrants from third-world countries taking it upon themselves to take machetes and randomly hack branches from trees to feed their nearby barbecue cookouts, despite the fact the city has often responded to this irresponsible desecration by installing used "charcoal depositories" in specific park areas. Clearly, bad habits from the "old country" persist.
Old photos of downtown Montreal show swathes of shade trees on virtually every street, and in fact, our city was once internationally reknowned for its many trees and churches--both of which have steadily declined over the decades.
While it is true that the roots of some trees can and do eventually break through into the foundations of nearby buildings, management of the type of tree used can prevent this from occurring.
As I pointed out in another post, while in recent years some of our city parks have been upgraded and "prettied-up", others are left to deteriorate for some inexplicable reason. For example, in some parks, old or broken benches are never replaced, or otherwise installed elsewhere and away from where they strategically used to be and placed instead in poorly-thought-out locations such as right next to a playing field where someone can easily be hit by a flying ball, frisbee, etc. Isn't it a no-brainer to put a bench or picnic table under a shade tree instead?
During the winter, some of of those "snow plow jockeys" routinely carve up the grass edge strips next to the walking paths so that in the Spring there remain ugly, muddy "shoulders" which must then be repaired; city trucks driving right across the grass leaving wheel ruts, etc. This indifference never used to happen decades ago, so I can only assume that our public employees have become too lax and irresponsible in their work and this is bound to rub off on everyone else.
Perhaps that is why there seems to be much more trash in our parks than ever before. People are apparently too lazy to toss it into the garbage cans provided--of which, admittedly, there are usually too few available anyway.
And don't get me started on the seemingly endless parade of people who insist on feeding the hordes of gulls who congregate (and often now even remain overnight!) in certain parks, and the odd idiot who thinks it's perfectly okay to whack golf balls with his club across the park field any time he so chooses--something which is clearly dangerous, destructive to the sod, and therefore against park regulations.
I live in Palermo. It's easy: no winter + lots of water because water conducts & sewers are all broken up and the city floods whenever there are more than 2 minutes of rain. Come to think of it, Montreal has broken underground infrastructure too. Otherwise, the great thing is that home-owners here kind of often'adopt' the tree in front of their house and clean it, take care of it. That's sweet.
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