By Pepper Parr
June 8, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
There wasn’t much in the way of protest – the citizens of the city took the arborist at their word when they said the two willow trees planted by Spencer Smith 70 years ago had to come down – it was all about public safety.
Kind of bald looking isn’t it? There are many thousands of people in the city who will be very surprised when they take in the Sound of Music and notice that the trees are gone. Unfortunately not everyone reads the Gazette – yet.
This is what we lost.
There was a small celebration of the trees the day before the chain saws cut into the wood – an aboriginal drummer was on hand to lend a degree of dignity to the event that was organized by Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward. She was the only member of council to make an appearance.
The public at the event was told that seventy cuttings would be taken from the trees; they had already been taken and were already in the city nursery where they have been plated and will be nurtured to the point where they are ready for transplanting elsewhere in the city
Two trees came down – took less than two days. The foresters had to be off the site so the Sound of Music set up teams could get started on their task.
Imagine 70 more willow trees sprinkled round the city. Let us hope that much thought and consideration is given to just where they are planted. There is an opportunity here for our historical past to be spread around the city with plaques that tell the story.
Burlington has a problem getting itself attached to its history. We have let far too much of it get away on us.
The taking down of the trees was done by city staff. Drew Deitner, Supervisor of Forestry has a crew that has great equipment that lets them take down trees safely and quite quickly. “The logs that result will get taken out to the yard and stored until someone tells me what to do with them.”
The tallest parts come down piece by piece.
While willow trees are technically hard wood – they are the softest of the hard woods – one wonders if there might be an opportunity for the wood carver’s guild to do something with those large logs.
Deitner explained that when we began taking down the most easterly tree – the one right next to the gazebo the level of rot in one part was so severe that one of the foresters was able to sink his chain saw into the inside of the tree as if it was quick sand.
Other parts of the tree was in pretty good shape.
The trees may have a little more taken off them Deitner explained – “right now our task was to get them cut down so that there were no public safety issues.”
Public safety is getting to be the mother lode of justifications for a lot of decisions these days.
I too am very sad that these trees were taken down!
Great suggestion Mark .
So sad these trees are gone
I think it would be appropriate to have someone carve a likeness of Spencer Smith into one of the remaining trunks. He could be shown standing proudly overlooking his beloved park.