By Laura Dowd
In the Spring of 2012, a dozen GreeningRozzie
volunteers planted new trees in Roslindale to help reduce the carbon footprint
of our community and make an open space greener. The City of Boston was
offering young trees to community groups through “Grow Boston Greener” grants.
GreeningRozzie identified the Roslindale Village commuter rail station as a
site, coordinated with the MBTA, planted trees on both sides of the station,
and called for volunteers to help water the young trees.
I adopted a newly planted crab apple tree and
promised to water it regularly. Other neighbors did the same, bringing water to
the commuter rail station site for the first two years after the trees were
planted.
It took some dedication for volunteers to water
regularly, since water had to be carried to the commuter rail site. I started
saving plastic milk jugs and juice bottles and filled them with water collected
in my basement dehumidifier. A few years later I installed a rain barrel
outside my house, and filled jugs with rain water for the young crabapple tree.
The GreeningRozzie Memory Tree Project grew out of this
initiative. Pam Sinotte, who organized volunteers to water the trees, developed
the Memory Tree concept and gained the endorsement of the City of Boston Parks
Department in an ongoing effort to encourage city residents and businesses to
water street trees.
For the first few years, with regular watering,
the young trees at the train station grew well and started to become
established. After four or five years, however, several of the trees started to
show signs of stress, exacerbated by a severe drought in the summer of 2016.
In the Spring of 2018, GreeningRozzie invited
arborist Jen Kettell to evaluate the trees at the commuter rail station site.
Jen recommended several measures that could help the trees survive, including
continued regular watering, and building berms for the trees planted on sloping
ground to limit rain water runoff.
Improving the site
In June 2018, GR organized a work session at the
commuter rail station site to start making the improvements Jen recommended.
More than a dozen volunteers worked together for
a few hours on a hot early summer afternoon. We accomplished a lot! We cleared grass and
weeds from around the bases of ten trees, added compost and mulch, and
thoroughly watered the trees.
Using donated wood and his experience as a
skilled carpenter, Brian Cartwright built a wooden berm on the downward slope
side of a small oak tree. The volunteers built temporary berms for other
trees using sod and rocks found at the site.
Roslindale neighbors worked along with
volunteers from Speak for the Trees, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting street trees
in and around Boston. We also gratefully welcomed our neighbors from Roslindale Green and Clean, who volunteer
regularly to maintain gardens in other public spaces in Roslindale. And the School for Modern Foreign Languages,
across from the train station agreed to allow occasional access to its outside
water faucet for watering the trees at the station site.
Looking ahead
We’ve learned a lot about the challenges of
maintaining new trees in a public space.
Regular watering is hard to maintain without
access to outside water faucets. Trees planted on slopes need regular
maintenance to reduce competition from weeds and minimize rainwater runoff.
Trees situated in open public space also need protection from mowers and
wildlife.
We’ve also started to learn that it is important
to think about what kind of trees we plant, especially in the context of
climate change. Native trees and plants support a much higher
number and greater diversity of insects, including pollinators that are
especially important for organic gardening.
Claudia Thompson, founder of Grow Native Mass and a guest speaker at
the Roslindale Branch Library in March 2018, noted that populations of
migratory birds are in decline; native plants and trees are needed to support
the insects that these birds rely on to feed newly hatched baby birds.
Planting native trees reduces the carbon
footprint of our community, and the trees support other species as they
struggle to adapt and survive on a warming planet.
The work that we do now will improve the
long-term survival of young trees.
GreeningRozzie is planning the second annual
work session at the commuter rail station for June 2019. Our goals for this
year’s event are to weed, mulch and water the trees, find volunteers to water
through the summer, and build wooden berms for 3 or 4 more trees that are
planted on slopes. If you are interested in joining the effort, let us know and we’ll make sure to
contact you.
Why This Matters
As we think about what we can do at the
community level in the face of climate change – a global threat that is
overwhelming – it’s a challenge to stay hopeful.
But the small steps we take, like supporting
trees, will make a difference.
Here are some resources that can help guide our
local work:
Climate-Wise Landscaping has ten sections, with climate-wise goals
for each one. For trees and shrubs, the goals are “cooling the air, storing
carbon, stabilizing soil, and providing habitat.” Other sections look at
plants, soil, water, planning and design, urban issues (dealing with urban
heat, promoting nature in cities), food (producing food locally, reducing CO2
emissions) and materials (assessing the climate footprint of common landscaping
materials).
- Advocate for street trees – and partner with other
advocates
Speak for the Trees is launching a project
to inventory 12,000 street trees in Boston in 2019. They are recruiting
partners from community groups around the city, and training volunteers. SFTT has developed an open tree map data base.
- Advocate for native trees and plants – to support local
ecosystems
At the GreeningRozzie community meeting in December, Boston Water
and Sewer project manager Kate England provided an indepth presentation on
green infrastructure that’s being added across the city, including at a street
intersection and a school in Roslindale.
In the discussion after the meeting, which included City Councilor
Michelle Wu, people raised questions about the types of trees used for street
trees and local green infrastructure projects.
The Boston Parks and Recreation Department, where city arborists
oversee management of street tree planning, maintains a list of approved trees that residents can request to be planted in spaces
in front of their houses.
The City’s list includes small tree and tall tree species; the
small tree section includes only one native tree species.
Join GreeningRozzie as we work with local elected officials to
advocate for a change in Parks Department policies and practices. We’d like
Boston arborists to prioritize planting with native trees and add more natives
to their approved street tree list.
