23 Feb/18

The winter ritual of tree removal has begun along the river. American Elms that have been identified as having Dutch Elm Disease (DED) and marked with the orange/red removal tag, are being cut down for disposal. I guess one reason why they wait until now to do some parts is so that the trees fall onto the ice, and can be cut apart. There are a couple of photos of the removal, and today the workers are cutting the trees into parts that can be removed.
In spite of everything, the city has done a decent job preserving the elms. Most of the older neighbourhoods (like mine) have elms lining the streets. The spreading treetops meet, and make a canopy of shady green in the summer time. I've noticed though, that some elms are not being removed for years after being tagged, and in local areas it seems to be spreading. There is a house just south of mine where marked elms stood dead for several years, and now there are numerous infected trees in the immediate area.
The really worrisome thing is that a lot of the trees that were planted to replace the dead elms were ash, and the Emerald Ash Borer has been found in Winnipeg early this winter. So eventually we will lose the elms, and the ash trees that replace them. It's kind of a sad thing to watch. The DED was introduced, but is spread by indigenous bark beetles. The Emerald Ash Borer was introduced as well, so both our major trees are falling victim to organisms not here at their time of planting. I think we need to start planting replacements now, but what and when seems to be up to the city. Winnipeg is on flat, flat land, and to have no city trees would make this a hard place to live in.

Julkaistu helmikuu 23, 2018 05:21 IP. käyttäjältä mamestraconfigurata