S. Main btw William and Liberty:

Were they dead?

I walked by today. The crew is trimming the other trees. I suspect that they realized, either before or after trimming, that those trees wouldn’t make it much longer.

Are they being replanted? Doesn’t the Main St. association run the upkeep and beautification of the street?

As of Spring this year, there were about 20 trees on that block. Most were littleleaf linden, ginko, or honeylocusts, and all were listed as in good or fair condition.

This information is from my patented “TreeSleuth 2000″ web application, which will be released close to never and contains records of over 55,000 trees cataloged by the City of Ann Arbor.

I’ve asked the city forestry department to shed some light on this. I’ll speculate at this point that these trees were removed at the direction of the Downtown Development Authority. We’ve been working with the city in regard to many recent tree removals as well as proposed removals. And,Matt,we are looking forward to your “TreeSleuth 2000″ application – - it should be of great help to us, as has been the source for this information – - the Davey Tree Report. The Davey Tree Report can be found at our website: Tree Conservancy Website or on the forestry page of the city website.

Sue — Thank you for the comment. I was not aware that there was a citizen’s body maintaining oversight of forestry operations. I also found your website helpful. Keep up the good work.

Phil, the stumps will have to be removed first (along with, perhaps, the one on the west side left from the big walnut that was removed a while back.)

Sue (and others), I passed on some info about the Tree Conservancy to the Environmental Commission members a month ago. Please let me know if you have any policy-related matters you’d like to propose that we consider.

Here is the response to an email I sent earlier today to Kerry Gray at the city forestry department regardint the recently removed Main Street trees. (And though AATC may continue to have differences and concerns regarding forestry department policies, Kerry Gray, along with Sue McCormick and Craig Hupy have been very accessible and responsive).

Hi Sue,

My apologies for not notifying the Ann Arbor Tree Conservancy about the removal of these trees. The trees are part of the Elizabeth Dean Promenade which includes all of the above ground planters along Main Street from Huron to William Streets. The Promenade was created in 1965 and was the first project that was paid for by the Elizabeth Dean Fund trust. Since that time, the City with funding from the Dean Fund has been maintaining the trees.

The work occurring on the Dean Promenade is part of an effort undertaken by the Elizabeth Dean Fund Committee (cc’d on this message) and the City to ensure that the tree canopy along Main Street is maintained into the future. The trees in the Dean Promenade were planted at the same time and there is concern that they will also decline and die at the same time and we will lose the tree canopy on Main Street. Unfortunately we are beginning to see some of the trees die, particularly the Littleleaf Lindens. Several years ago the Littleleaf Linden trees in front of Conor O’Neill’s died and were removed and replaced.

The work currently approved and funded by the Dean Fund Committee for this fiscal year included the removal of four dead/dying Littleleaf Linden trees toward William (three on the east side and one on the west side of the street). I have attached photos of the four trees that were removed. Kay and I both conducted assessments of the trees. The work also includes trimming all of the other trees in the Promenade, and grinding the stumps and replanting trees where the four were removed. The replacement of the trees is scheduled to occur by Spring 2010 at the latest. In the future, as trees decline and die on the Dean Promenade the City and Dean Fund Committee will be actively working to remove and replace these trees to maintain the canopy and beauty of Main Street.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

Kerry
Kerry Gray
Urban Forestry & Natural Resources Planner
City of Ann Arbor- Systems Planning Unit
100 N. Fifth Avenue, PO Box 8647
Ann Arbor, MI 48107-8647
Phone: 734.794.6430 x 43703
Fax: 734.994.1744