Photo by Vince Fedoroff
TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF – City parks supervisor Marc Boulerice is seen with one of the new Swedish columnar aspens last Thursday afternoon on Main Street between Front Street and Second Avenue.
Street gradually undergoing tree metamorphosis
A bit of a makeover is underway for Main Street thanks to a $20,000 grant from Tree Canada.
A bit of a makeover is underway for Main Street thanks to a $20,000 grant from Tree Canada.
Over the last couple of weeks, city parks staff have been busy taking out 16 of the birch trees along the sidewalk of the downtown street and replacing them with Swedish columnar aspen.
As parks supervisor Marc Boulerice explained in an interview last Thursday, Tree Canada was providing the grants as part of the Canada 150 celebrations.
City officials applied, and were provided with the funding.
“We saw it as an opportunity,” Boulerice said.
The city was finding itself having to replace up to a dozen of the decorative birch trees each year, he pointed out.
The Main Street project is just one part of the tree-planting initiative, with the city using the funds to plant elsewhere around town as well.
As Boulerice explained, the city wanted to make a change to the trees on Main Street.
The birches need a lot of water, and the city’s twice-weekly watering schedule just wasn’t enough for some of the trees, he said.
The concrete environment of the sidewalks likely added to the amount of water the trees required.
“Aspens are more resistant to drought,” he noted.
The birch trees also require a lot of pruning work, given the way the branches grow.
Boulerice also pointed to the vandalism the birch trees have suffered.
It’s not unusual to find branches that had been ripped off the trees overnight littering the sidewalk on a Saturday morning.
Given the more compact way the new trees grow, city officials hope that will no longer be the case. The change will also mean less maintenance for parks staff.
“They (the new trees) won’t need to be pruned as much,” Boulerice said.
Work on replacing the trees, which started last week, is expected to wrap up this week.
City staff also planted three trees – a white spruce, sugar maple and a paper birch – in Shipyards Park.
They are working to take out and add new schubert cherry trees in Takhini North before the end of the season, with the funding from Tree Canada.
The Whitehorse tree-planting initiative is one of 150 projects Tree Canada is helping to fund in communities across the country as part of its celebration for the nation’s sesquicentennial.
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Comments (7)
Up 5 Down 0
Miles Ocean on Aug 31, 2017 at 7:25 pm
Nile, that's a little harsh but I have seen drunks aggressively bullying tourists which is not cool- so I do know what you mean.
However, if you have been to public meetings with the city there is not so much bullying as there is deception and hidden agendas.
At least we can be assured that the trees are honourable and they are working for us in a positive way by producing oxygen.
Up 11 Down 4
Nile on Aug 31, 2017 at 12:44 pm
Perhaps the city could have their bylaw department do something about all the drunks along Main Street that constantly vandalize, not just the trees, but the whole area. It would make tourists and residents much safer as well. I know that's to much to hope for from this Liberal Mayor and council though.
Up 9 Down 3
Capitan on Aug 30, 2017 at 9:25 pm
Those rose bushes along Hamilton and elsewhere are very hardy or they wouldn't still be there -- they were planted almost 20 years ago and withstand a very harsh environment with much less care than the Riverdale boulevard plants get -- which aren't local species, either. The roses are awesome. But they need some attention occasionally, as does the gravel that people think is sooo low maintenance, till it gets clogged with leaves and debris. Native plantings also need maintenance.
Trouble is, when people see city crews spending time on gardening tasks, they start claiming it's a waste of money. In my opinion, the city's money would be well spent on more maintenance, even if some new landscaping had to be deferred for a bit. It's a shame to see quite beautiful plantings get run down for want of consistent groundskeeping practices, but that's not a popular expenditure for many people.
I think most of the trees in front of White Pass for Christmas are donated by homeowners who need to remove them from their yards for one reason or another, which is a win-win for both sides.
Up 9 Down 1
Wayne on Aug 30, 2017 at 4:33 pm
To what, exactly, does "the Rec centre" refer to?
Up 10 Down 7
Denise Gregerson on Aug 30, 2017 at 11:42 am
I hope the trees being removed are being transplanted elsewhere or given away to those who want them.
I just wish that after all these years the city or the territory - whichever is responsible - would landscape the median in front of the Rec center preferably in the same manner as it is done in Riverdale using local plants. And since they cannot seem to take care of all the rose bushes along Hamilton perhaps they should have used the tree money to start making that area more environmentally sustainable.
Up 15 Down 6
Anie on Aug 30, 2017 at 9:09 am
COW has a history of planting trees and then letting them die of neglect. The existing trees, according to COW are dying because the city's watering schedule is inadequate. Gosh, how hard would it have been to find that out before planting them? And did they explore improving the watering schedule before yarding them out and replacing? These new trees won't survive either. And while they are looking at greenery, is anyone ever going to take responsibility for that weedfest they planted on two mile hill by the public safety building? Did they actually pay a contractor to plant a mess that nature would have delivered for free?
Up 34 Down 4
Tree hugger on Aug 29, 2017 at 9:54 am
I have an idea! Could you plant a large evergreen tree at the foot of Main Street in front of the White Pass building? Then you wouldn't chop one down every winter to put there.