Urban Sugaring

By Eric Olson

 

You may think maple syrup can only be made by the hardy farmers of Vermont, but my kids learned differently several years ago, when we moved back to New England from Costa Rica.  I had tapped sugar maples while teaching environmental education in Minnesota, so it seemed natural as we settled into our new life in West Newton to scout around for maple trees.  This proved as easy as falling off a log. Our neighbors on the right have a gnarly old sugar maple that may someday grow so big it will displace part of our driveway.  And the neighbors on the left have a towering Acer saccharum (the scientific name) that has grown straight as an arrow for 100 plus years, and is now one of the tallest trees for miles around.  Permission was secured to tap at will, by our first spring in Newton, we were collecting sap and making syrup.

You can do this for under a nickel per tree (not counting the energy cost to run the stove), but first a word of caution.  The growing and consumption of any urban plant foods raises concerns about soil contaminants. Heavy metals like lead and arsenic were used as pesticides in Newton’s apple orchards long ago.  Lead was also an ingredient in gasoline. We were proposing to get sap from big trees right on Watertown Street, aka Route 16.  And just steps away from several houses, where lead was typically used in the paint.  Heavy metals are elements so unlike DDT and most other synthetic chemicals they simply never break down.  Recent research at Dartmouth has confirmed that old orchards now used as suburban housing tracts contain worrisome levels of these chemicals.   

We found a local testing lab to analyze our saps and syrups for residues of these toxins.  The results were favorable — lead was detected, but far below Vermont’s maximum permissible level in maple syrup.  We broke out the pancake mix as soon as we opened the envelope from the lab!  Our results should not be taken as a green light for all of Newton, however, since it is the exact location of orchards that determines the presence of lead in the soil today. Testing is essential. 

Here are the steps involved in sugaring.

First, find a big sugar maple, using a field guide to trees.  Norway maples will not do at all, and silver and red maples make a much less concentrated sap.  Sugar maples are handsome trees with a distinctive leaf shape (think Canadian flag) and big, gray, platy bark. The leaves turn brilliant orange in the fall.

 

The author’s son Eli Olson presents the two-spout sugar maple on Watertown Street, tapped by the family each spring

Next make a spile.  Take a 3/4 inch dowel, drill a hole about 3 inches deep into one end with a 1/4 inch drill bit, then saw off the drilled piece.  You should have a perfect little wooden tube that you must taper a bit at one end with a sharp knife.  The whittled end must be perfectly round, so you may need to make a few of these before you get it right.  

Now locate a brace and bit (a kind of old drill).  The bit diameter must be a little smaller than the wide end of the dowel, but a little larger than the tapered end.  On an early spring day, sometimes as early as February, when the days are just above 32 F but the nights are still cold, drill a hole no more than three inches deep into the bark of the tree, pointing the bit slightly upwards as you go so that the sap drips out well.  Pick out stray bits of sawdust and bark, and firmly tap in your wooden pipe, but not so hard that you split the bark. The spile must be snug or sap will leak out around it.  About 1 inch of spile should go into the hole, with two inches protruding.  If it’

s warm a few drops of sap will fall from the tube within minutes. Cut a hole in the side of an empty clean one-gallon plastic milk jug, set it on your spile, and secure it snugly with wire around the tree.  Taste the cold sap, a slightly sweet refreshing drink.

Finally, transfer your sap to pots on the stove and boil away for a long while.  Check the Cornell University maple syrup website for details. It takes 40 cups of sap to make one cup of syrup.  Watch closely once the sap boils down and starts to brown, so as not to fill your house with smoke and a charred sugar smell.  Use a candy thermometer. When it’

s syrup, the boiling liquid will make a tan foam of very fine bubbles. If you boil too long at this point you will have maple sugar when it cools—you just need to experiment some.

At best, we get a couple of quarts of syrup from our two weeks of urban sugaring, with two taps in each of those two big trees.  Its not volume that counts, though, but the good fun of getting an amazing sweet food from nature at a time of year when our backyard garden plots are barely emerging from under crusty old snow. 

Sugar maples are found only in the northeastern part of North America as far west as Minnesota, and their range will shift northwards as the planet warms, so enjoy this tradition while you can.

Improving Our Parklands– a Democratic Tradition

By John Broderick

 

In 2006, Massachusetts was ranked 48th out of 50 states in per capita spending on parks and recreation.  After adjusting for inflation there has been a 33% decline in the urban parks budget since 2001, and the Department of Conservation and Recreation has been forced to cut 20% of its staff in the last five years.  Funding and performance go hand-in-hand, and due to fiscal constraints, state parks have suffered serious problems concerning the upkeep of what is becoming a decrepit infrastructure.

Our state parks serve as the wellsprings of a healthy, active community and are a physical embodiment of democratic ideals. Newton residents’ lives are enriched by the recreational and aesthetic benefits offered by Hemlock Gorge, Hammond Pond, the Upper Charles, and the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.  Parks offer many environmental benefits, including encouraging biodiversity and mitigating the effects of pollution and climate change.  Parks also help protect water quality, particularly by reducing stormwater runoff and limiting the quantity of harmful fertilizers that run into streams from suburban lawns. Massachusetts has long been at the vanguard of land protection and conservation, and state government has a duty to protect and improve green spaces throughout the Commonwealth. 

In 2003 Governor Romney decided to merge two existing agencies to create the DCR, thereby consolidating Massachusetts’ state park administration under one umbrella.  Unfortunately, since then, there has been a steady trend of reduced funding.  Advocacy groups have attempted to bridge fiscal gaps and have played an important role in publicizing the need for increased park funding and environmental stewardship, but these efforts, while commendable, cannot stand alone: without an active citizenry and government support, the efforts of advocacy groups can only serve as stop-gaps.  As in any democratic process, active citizen participation is crucial. One important resource available to citizens who want to protect and improve our state parks is the DCR Stewardship Council.

The Stewardship Council is a 13-member citizen advisory council appointed by the Governor to oversee the DCR and work with the agency to provide well-maintained and well-managed parks.  It is composed of environmental advocates, business leaders, and academics working to provide accountability in agency oversight and to set up long term goals in the fields of resource management planning, capital planning, and policy development.  They work as impartial advisors. Recognizing that the current DCR budget is “bare-boned” the Council has acknowledged the need for better planning and more fiscal discipline.  It examines budget allocations, and has applauded some decisions, such as the allotment of 1.5 million dollars for stormwater management remediation, while criticizing other decisions, such as the idea of giving the Urban Parks and Recreation the responsibility of maintaining 166 new acres (the Central Artery/Tunnel Parks and Spectacle Island) with no increase in budgeting. The latter decision was revised by the DCR due in part to the council’s criticisms. 

The DCR Stewardship Council is truly democratic.  All of the meetings are attended by DCR Commissioner Priscilla Geigis and are open to the public, giving an invaluable forum for citizens and advocacy groups to voice their opinions directly to the government administrators on policy issues that shape our parks.  Public comments are welcomed and recorded.

In addition to participating in the Stewardship Council, there are many opportunities for citizens to become active stewards for our parks, by volunteering with local advocacy groups, including the Charles River Conservancy, which has a large Volunteer corps. CRC volunteers have been improving the riverbanks through shoreline restoration, invasive species removal, and overall park maintenance. Charles River Watershed Association volunteers are working to improve water quality in the watershed. The Friends of the Hemlock Gorge and the Conservation and Recreation Campaign are other groups that welcome volunteers.  All of us should let our local officials know that we feel that parks are important and should be adequately funded.   It is up to us as citizens to take part – to “check back in”, as Governor Deval Patrick says – in the great democratic process of taking responsibility for our parks and finding viable solutions to their problems.

John Broderick is the Stewardship Program Assistant for the Charles River Conservancy. He can be reached at  jrb@thecharles.org.

The importance of removing invasive plants

By Florrie Funk

 

An invasive plant is a non-native species capable of spreading aggressively and monopolizing essential habitat resources–

light, nutrients, water, and space, to the detriment of other species.

Our planet’s life forms co-evolved over millions of years as complex, interdependent communities of organisms called ecosystems. Each species within an ecosystem depends on other species to provide nutrients, circumstances necessary for reproduction, and limits to its expansion.

Many plants rely on fungi and other soil organisms to decompose dead plants and animals, thereby releasing nitrogen and other nutrients into the soil. Specific plants often depend on specific insect species to pollinate their flowers so that they produce seeds, and they depend on other animals to help disperse those seeds. The community of organisms that make up an ecosystem includes of a variety of herbivores, predators, fungi, bacteria and other pathogens that help an ecosystem stay in balance by preventing one species from increasing to the point of extirpating others. When biodiversity (the number of different species) is reduced, this compromises the ability of an ecosystem to withstand drought, blights and other environmental stresses.

In our suburban communities, native species are being weakened by loss of biodiversity caused by habitat fragmentation. Ever-smaller natural areas are being separated by ever-wider highways and developments. Small, isolated populations of plants and animals, unable to exchange genes with other populations, become inbred and eventually die out.

The introduction of alien organisms has seriously compounded this problem. Some alien species were introduced intentionally by horticulturalists and others arrived by accident in soil or imported products. Some of these species do not survive; others persist as benign members of the community. But others grow and reproduce rapidly, displacing whole communities of native plants, sometimes causing rapid reductions in biodiversity and the extinction of other species.

Worldwide, invasive alien species are the second leading cause of species extinction. (The leading cause is habitat destruction.) More than 28% of the world’

s native species are threatened or endangered. There are 4000 non-native species grown outside of cultivation in the US (including 200 species in MA). The economic cost is estimated at $137 billion dollars annually (mostly from lost crops) and has led to a decline of 42% of endangered and threatened species nationwide.

In Newton, the worst offending invasive plants are species planted as ornamentals, such as Norway Maples, Japanese Barberry, Burning Bush, Oriental Bittersweet Vine, Japanese Knotweed (sometimes called “bamboo”

), Common and Glossy Buckthorn, Asian Shrub Honeysuckles, and Tree-of-Heaven.  Many of the characteristics that make a plant a good garden choice – rapid growth, disease resistance, easy propagation – increase the chances of its becoming invasive. These plants all produce seeds that are carried by birds or wind into natural areas, roadsides and vacant lots where they germinate, grow quickly and reproduce. This vegetation often looks at first glance like nature happily doing what it is supposed to do.  But dense patches of Japanese Knotweed or monoculture groves of Norway Maples are actually heartbreaking reminders of the many dozens of species that are now gone:  wildflowers, ferns, grasses, shrubs, trees, plus the insects, birds and other animals that depend on them.

In the past, conservation areas were purchased and left alone, and nature took care of itself.  No longer.  Due to the proliferation of invasive species most forests and conservation areas must now be actively managed.  If invasive species are not controlled, overall species diversity will decline, and the loss will be irreversible.

The MA Department of Agricultural Resources “Massachusetts Prohibited Plant List” designates 141 plants, including many popular ornamentals that are now prohibited from being imported, sold or propagated.  This ban may help reduce the spread of invasive species, but in many cases the horse is already out of the barn.

Promising research is being done on biological controls, such as a beetle species that eats Purple Loosestrife (a highly invasive plant found in wetlands throughout North America), but these methods are still experimental and may entail ecological risks. To learn what you can do to help to limit the spread of invasive species, visit: newfs.org (New England Wildflower Society), tncweeds.ucdavis.edu (Nature Conservancy), nps.gov/plants/alien (National Parks Service) and www.newtonconservators.org (Newton Conservators).

Florrie Funk, florriemfunk@aol.com, has taught interpretive nature study programs in CA, FL, MO and IL and assisted with ecological research and habitat restoration at the Chicago Botanic Garden and in Highland Park. 

Surveying Newton’s Nature

By Patricia G. Goldman

 

“I first came to Newton with preconceived ideas regarding the quality of urban-centered conservation areas…I did not really think that I would find much of interest…how terribly wrong I was.  Newton’s conservation areas are rich in beauty and wildlife,” said consultant John Richardson in his 1996 report to the Board of Aldermen. 

Ten years later, a group of volunteers from the non-profit Newton Conservators have been out walking once a week to document the current status of Newton’s natural open spaces.  They are carefully noting every type of tree, shrub, fern, wildflower, and wildlife they encounter.  They are particularly noting invasive species that may be crowding out native plants. And they are noting where illegal dumping may be endangering these environments.

Where Richardson looked closely at seven areas, the Conservators have tackled over 30 sites, as part of their mission to preserve and maintain open spaces in Newton for public use and enjoyment.

“We wanted to do something outdoors, hands-on to preserve these places,” says Beth Schroeder, co-chair of this land management committee with Cris Criscitiello.  “We didn’t even know where all these open spaces were until we met with Martha Horne of the Newton Planning Department.  My interest came from enjoying my own garden, doing landscape design for clients, and wanting to know more about which plants are native to this area.”

Says Criscitiello, a retired physician, “We initially intended a survey of what’s growing in the different conservation habitats in Newton, in the wetlands and elevated hillsides, the sunny areas and shady areas.  We wanted people to have a good time walking around and really seeing things.”

Florrie Funk, a member of the committee notes that “it’s hard to appreciate what’s here if all you do is look around and see green stuff.  If you can identify trees and shrubs, it becomes more exciting and you’re more likely to be interested in protecting good native plants.”

Funk is particularly interested in identifying and preventing the spread of invasive species.  Plants like Japanese knotweed, goutweed, garlic mustard, purple loosestrife and Oriental bittersweet tend to crowd out native plants.  Even though some invasives may be attractive plants, they are tending to endanger rare and beautiful native species, such as gentians and cardinal flowers. 

The volunteer group has a fern expert, bird experts, people particularly interested in wildflowers and mushrooms, even a research botanist who is an expert in plant classifications.  They are waiting for their vernal pool expert to have time to help identify amphibians.  When an expert cannot immediately identify something, they turn to their Field Guides and even take photos to match up on internet sites.

The group intends to keep up their weekly survey trips all winter long.  “Even in the snow and ice, we can identify trees and bushes by their structure, the shape of their leaf buds and whether the leaves grow opposite each other or in an alternating pattern,” says Schroeder.

Thus far the group has produced extensive spreadsheets with checkmarks indicating every time any of hundreds of species has been found in each of the 30 Newton conservation sites. “This document establishes a baseline of existing species, which allows us to detect changes over time,” Schroeder notes.

“As we get the information we compare it with the 1996 Richardson report,” says Criscitiello.  “We would also like to track the species during different seasons and make all the information available for educational purposes on our website (NewtonConservators.org), at the library, in the Newton Planning Department, and in an episode of the Environmental Show on NewTV.”

 “We could use an insect expert in our group,” he says.  Funk adds that it would also be nice to have someone who knows grasses and sedges.  “To identify sedges, you have to look at the seeds under a microscope,” she notes.

Has the group identified anything surprising thus far?  “We have found over twenty types of ferns, Jack-in-the-pulpit, pink lady’s slipper, trout lily, bloodroot, trillium and huge sassafras trees,” says Schroeder.  “There are a lot of things you wouldn’t see unless you look carefully.  Our group has located many of the plants listed in Richardson’s 1996 report and quite a few new ones.”

Doing the right thing with lovely lumber

By Eric Olson

 

The idea of paying a bit more for products that help us live healthier lives is no longer foreign to most people.  As proof we need only look to the growing interest in fresh, locally produced fruits and vegetables and the rise in sales of organic milk.  Some people take the next step and choose products that do not yield personal benefits so directly, but do favor producers over middlemen (Fair Trade coffee) or are considered better for the environment (recycled paper).  How about wood used in furniture and construction?  Are there ways to encourage logging companies to minimize harm to both local and tropical forests?

Roberta Durschlag of Waban asked just this question recently when she and her husband, Mark, set out to remodel their back porch.  They hoped to use a beautiful tropical wood called Honduran Mahogany but hoped not to support companies that are cutting forests willy nilly.  So they did some research and found that there is indeed such a thing as “sustainably harvested” wood.  In a sustainable logging operation, trees must be cut and processed in such a way that a forest’s soils, wildlife, waterways, and other essential features are only temporarily disturbed by selective cutting and carefully constructed logging trails.  Trees are big plants, of course, so any logging operation results in some damage.  But by inviting foresters and ecologists from the Forest Stewardship Council and other groups to observe a logging operation, companies can prove that they are following best-practice rules.  For this whole notion to work, of course, homeowners and businesses must then favor these firms with their purchasing decisions.

Consulting the Green Decade Coalition/Newton,  Ms Durschlag learned several dealers of certified wood in this region, but it turned out that only one – Sterritt Lumber of Watertown – was willing to deal with a residential customer.  Though it cost significantly more than standard lumber, the Durschlags chose the certified product.  Knowing that their wood came from a certified forest should lend it a special glow as they enjoy their porch for years to come.

The Green Decade Coalition/Newton would like to hear similar good news stories from other local buyers and sellers of certified lumber.  info@greendecade.org.

Eric Olson, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Ecology in the Sustainable International Development Program at the Heller School, Brandeis University, is Chair of the Energy Committee of the Green Decade Coalition. 

It’s Wednesday, do you know where your vegetables are?

By Lois Levin

 

Each year 76,000,000 Americans suffer food poisoning; 300,000 require hospitalization and 5,000 people die. These numbers imply much human suffering. The US food supply is highly vulnerable to contamination, even here in Metropolitan Boston.Michael Pollen, in a recent op-ed piece in the NY Times, cuts to the quick: “Today 80 percent of America’s beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company.” He adds: “Keeping local food economies healthy — and at the moment they are thriving — is a matter not of sentiment but of critical importance to the national security and the public health, as well as to reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy.”

Consider public health. Most of us felt a twinge of fear when we learned about the recent contamination of packaged spinach, and rightly so. Although we may never know the exact source of that deadly outbreak, the underlying problem is no mystery. E coli bacteria thrive in the guts and manure of feedlot cattle. Manure often finds its way onto agricultural fields and agricultural workers’ hands. This problem has escalated because of the increasing centralization and scale of US agriculture. Because the growing, packaging and distribution of agricultural produce has become highly centralized and mechanized over the years, what used to be a local problem of food-borne illness that could be contained and traced is now poised- at any moment- to generate a national disaster.

There are technological fixes for this, such as increasing radiation treatment of our food supply to eliminate bacterial agents.  There are also political fixes, such as government enforcement of strict separation of animal feedlots and produce fields. These solutions, however, exact a big price. Not so much in dollars; the large corporations involved in agribusiness are marvels of efficiency and can absorb the financial cost. The greatest price is borne by the public, because enacting these measures reinforcesthe trend of limiting consumer access to fresh, ripe and varied produce.Consider national security. In 2004 The US Health and Human Services chief, Tommy Thompson, publicly expressed amazement that “terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.”Consider energy and pollution. In Massachusetts, most of the domestic produce we eat travels on average 1500 miles (and often 3000 miles) from field to market. It is transported by vehicles that run on fossil fuels.  Consider biodiversity. Look at all those uniform bags and bunches of produce in the supermarkets. We have already lost so much of the variety that promotes disease resistance. Monocultures are not natural ecosystems; they require lots of pesticides and fertilizers.Consider local farmers.  Not only does the large-scale, highly centralized production of our food supply seriously compromise human health and biodiversity, while increasing our vulnerability to terrorism, it is also putting more and more small farmers out of business. They cannot afford- and they do not need- the costly equipment and procedures mandated by governments to ensure the safety of food grown by large, centralized producers.We consumers right here in Metropolitan Boston have choices about what we eat. Exercising those choices thoughtfully takes time and care. We can make the effort to support local farmers, to learn how and where our food is grown and about the benefits of organic food (www.nofa.org). If we don’t do this, and wejust “keep on truckin’”, we’ll be playing Russian roulette ‘til the cows come in.

Ecological gardening

By Michelle Portman/ Special To The Tab

 

 

You can turn a yard into a wildlife-friendly, water-saving, low maintenance, naturally beautiful place without pesticides and chemical fertilizers.  It might require a change of perspective.

Turf grass has become a staple of American life.  The consensus seems to be that green grass lawns are a safe place for children to play, a haven away from stressful daily lives and a way to connect with nature and neighbors.  But these turfs are far from a natural occurring phenomenon and usually aren’t “safe” at all (see wording of sign above).

Americans’ love of lawn stems, in part, from early English gardens, which incorporated grass as an art form.  British landscape painters of the early 18^th century entrenched this vision by painting vast expanses of grass lawns as the ideal living situation.  European settlers brought these preferences to North America.  Advertisements and television shows highlight lush green turf lawns and envious neighbors (e.g. “the grass is always greener . . .”), making many believe that this is the only option for an attractive yard.

In reality, expansive turf and tidy exotic planted beds are far from ideal.  The application of pesticides—herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and rodenticides—and synthetic fertilizers needed to maintain lawns and many plant species present serious environmental and health risks.  An alternative called “ecological landscaping” that minimizes the use of pesticides and fertilizers and maximizes the use of natural landscape elements suited to local climate and geography offers a wiser, practical alternative. 

Ecological landscaping involves preserving native vegetation, landscaping with new native plants, shrubs and trees and if desired, adding non—invasive ornamentals that complement and do not out-compete native vegetation. A complementary approach—organic landscaping—uses no synthetic pesticides, fertilizers or soil amendments; its land care practices take into account the local ecosystem, benefiting the whole web of life.  (Another definition of “organic” may confuse people:  in chemistry, any molecule with a carbon atom is called “organic.”)

Ecological and organic landscaping benefit not only the yard owner and user but the whole environment because what we put into our yards eventually ends up in the air, water and soil.  The US Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Assessment for the decade of 1991-2001 found detectable concentrations of pesticides in water more than 90 percent of the time across all streams sampled that had significant agricultural or urban land use in the watersheds.  More than 80 percent of urban streams had concentrations in water of at least one pesticide that exceeded a water-quality benchmark for aquatic life set by the Environmental Protections Agency. 

The advantages of ecological and organic landscaping are significant.  Better wildlife habitat is created, thus helping to protect biodiversity.  Native varieties usually require much less water and they can provide erosion protection, especially near bodies of water or on steep slopes.  There is less noise and air pollution from lawn mowers, weed whackers and leaf blowers when these machines are used infrequently.  Cost savings is a great benefit too, achieved through fewer inputs to the yard.  Less obvious benefits are lower health risks from pesticides, fertilizers, and gasoline fumes. 

The key principles of Ecological Landscaping are:

a)    maintain as much as possible of the pre-existing landscape, including soil, rocks and contours;

b)    integrate components with surrounding natural vegetation to rejoin native habitat;

c)    identify and remove non-native invasive plants;

d)    use native varieties of plants and ground covers that are appropriate for the soil type, moisture content, and climate conditions;

e)    use water-efficient/drought-tolerant plantings;

f)      provide plant species of varying height—grasses, flowers, shrubs, and trees—to provide food, hiding places, nesting and over-wintering sites;

g)    minimize the use of pesticides to control weeds, insects and rodents;

h)    use compost and other natural products for fertilizer and mulch.

More information:  Ecological landscaping Association website:  www.ela-ecolandscapingassn.org; MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs booklet:  More than Just a Yard:  Ecological Landscaping Tools for Massachusetts Homeowners.  www.Mass.gov/envir/mwrc/pdf/More_Than_Just_Yard.pdf, and www.organiclandcare.net (list of accredited organic landscape professionals from the Organic Land Care Committee of CT and MA.

Michelle Portman is an environmental planner/analyst and the author/illustrator of “Compost, by Gosh! An Adventure with Vermicomposting”. 

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

The Garden City’s tree doc

By Eric Olson/ Special To The Tab

 

Urban trees have it rough, especially those growing in that no-mans-land between the sidewalk and the street. Yet by the reckoning of Marc Welch, Newton’s new Tree Warden, regionally only Boston tops Newton in sheer number of trees to plant, tend, and ultimately remove and replace. Our thousands of curb-side trees and the narrow plot of grass and soil (the berm) they grow in are all City property. Most homeowners mow the berm and some even keep it bright with flowers, but what about those trees, who cares for them?

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The author with a doomed Maple tree

<![endif]–>Officially that is the City’s job. “The trouble is, we simply do not have the resources to routinely patrol the town spotting and removing problem trees” says Welch, a former City of Boston Arborist and President of the Mass Tree Wardens and Foresters Association. Still, as anyone who appreciates trees knows, there are some seriously ailing trees in Newton. If the City had sufficient resources, many of them would probably come down tomorrow, in time to be replaced during the fall tree planting season. Inspecting, cutting, and hauling off a dying tree, and then buying and planting a new one, cost a lot of money. So just how does the City prioritize within its limited tree budget?

The answer may come as a surprise – the City depends on residents to sound the alarm for a given tree. When a call comes in, Welch makes a visit to decide if the situation warrants immediate action. If he agrees its a goner – due to wounding, senescence or other cause – he alerts the private companies that the City works with for its tree care. Some 20 years ago the City maintained its own arborist crews, but those days are long-gone.

Since the City depends on resident calls, action on trees that need prompt removal is taken largely on a first-come first-served basis. A tree census might bring more order to this process, but Newton’s trees were last surveyed in the early 1990’s, and the results are long out-of-date. Welch hopes to organize a new census sometime in the next few years, for which he says college students will be trained and employed for a summer to survey the 300 miles of roads in Newton. That’s a lot of trees to classify to species and health status. For sake of comparison, its about 260 miles from Newton to Philadelphia, Penn.

Meanwhile healthy trees can be better kept that way by judicious pruning –

for example, by trimming limbs that are growing towards the street and might be torn off someday by a passing truck. In addition to his inspector role, Welch organizes courses in tree care, and then oversees his graduates in weekend volunteer pruning fests.  For information on courses, or to report a street tree doomed to die, call the City Parks and Recreation Department at 617-796-1500.

Eric Olson, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Ecology in the Sustainable International Development Program at the Heller School, Brandeis University, has led many research expeditions in Central andd South America.  He is on the Board of Directors of the Green Decade Coalition.