It happens every time. As the huge jet circles our part of central Jersey, winging me home to Plainsboro from whatever foreign land, I am invariably smitten by how comparatively lush and green our trees make the Garden State. Now that Hurricane Sandy has touched heavily down, however, I doubt if any of us will ever see those magnificent additions to our landscape quite the same again.
When all was cut and stacked, the township of West Windsor has taken thousands of tons of tree wood, floral debris, and mulch laid waste by the storm to the Britton Industries landfill in Lawrence. At one point 28 staffers were working exhaustive — and expensive — 12-hour, seven-day shifts. Plainsboro incurred similar costs.
But the wrath of Sandy has left us with a far greater loss than some funds, and a few days without business, school, and our electronic creature comforts. It has uprooted beauty as much as a century in the making. The trees are one of the main, if unappreciated reasons why we fell in love with this town. They give our neighborhoods that feel that makes us want to stay and put down our own roots.
Real estate assessors state that mature trees add .5 percent to a property’s value — an extra $1,500 profit on the sale of your $300,000 home. Real estate agents, however, realize this is a woeful underestimate. That newly built development set on a treeless green looks like dice rolled out on a craps table. Give it 40 years worth of hardwood plantings, and sellers get their homes snapped up in this established setting.
Few people understand trees’ intrinsic, environmental, and emotional value better than Dan Dobromilsky. For the last 28 years, both as a consultant and chair of West Windsor’s Shade Tree Commission, Dobromilsky has planned and labored over our parks, forests, and avenues. He has sought to provide residents with as much natural setting as is convenient and refreshing in our modern lives.
To date, more than half of West Windsor’s 26-plus square miles remain preserved in open space. We have great corridors and wide belts of green along our wetlands and creeks. These public forests fell heavily under Sandy’s scythe. Walk through any of the public pathways, or bushwack a bit through those woods edging our parks, and a wincing number of successive uprootings disrupts the scene. The fall of these great patriarchs will doubtless seem less unsettling as spring brings forth an array of saplings in their place. For those who want to lend Nature a hand, the New Jersey Tree Foundation is offering free two-year-old trees for planting on public land. Visit www.newjerseytreefoundation.org.
To the 20,000 planted trees lining our streets Sandy was remarkably more lenient, with only 90 shade trees uprooted, another 65 damaged and removed, and another 115 requiring severe pruning. “In an average year,” says Dobromilsky, “we replace 100 street trees. This year it will be 300.”
As a result of the storm damage, many have looked askance at all these plantings seemingly crammed into that narrow grass strip between curb and sidewalk. Surely, Mr. Shade Tree Commissioner, these towering trees were misplanted to begin with. You showed little or no forethought. Am I right? Dobromilsky’s immediate answer is no, but he hastens to add that the explanation requires some history.
It was in the early 1970s that West Windsor officials decided they wanted tree-lined streets and formed a shade tree commission. The obvious choice were large canopy trees that could adapt to the space and endure the necessary pruning: oaks, maples, linden, and the multi-colored sycamore. With the aid of Murillo Landscape, the township laid out its initial plan.
Dobromilsky came aboard not long after the initial plantings were underway. A native of Jamesburg, Dobromilsky entered Rutgers University in 1982 with his eyes on the incipient computer field. “My dad, an air products technician, perhaps nudged me towards things technical,” he says. But somewhere along the way, he became enamored of the world of nature. Working for New Brunswick landscapers gave experience to infatuation, and in 1986 Dobromilsky graduated from Rutgers with a bachelor’s in landscape architecture.
Shortly after graduation, Dobromilsky joined Murillo Landscape Company and took over the West Windsor shade tree account. In l998, when the municipality opened the position, he was the logical choice for Shade Tree Commission chair.
“The real heavy push to plant street trees came in the early 1990s,” says Dobromilsky. “This means now we have a large variety of mature trees lining our streets.” Then about eight years ago, nature and electronics collided. After power outages caused deaths in successive Ohio hurricanes, the federal government deemed a steady flow of electricity as a national necessity. The providers were held legally responsible for maintaining it, and were fined for power outages caused by damage from trees. That did it.
Utilities became obsessive pruners. The old days in which wires would flow nicely through etched holes in foliage were history. If it could reach the wires, cut it off. “We of the commission have no authority to cut around power lines,” says Dobromilsky. For that reason, the selection of power lines plants changed. Lilac, shad, and red bud trees offer broad, prunable canopies beneath the wires, and delightful flowers in season. In the case of both high canopy hardwoods or low flowering trees, the water table and root systems are studied and considered.
As to safety and maintenance, all of the township’s planted street trees undergo constant examination and annual pruning. At first planting and for the next few years, branches are pruned up to six feet; for 10 to 15 year olds, it’s up to 10 feet; and for older trees, 14 feet (the maximum height of roadway trucks.) “And who pays for all this attendance to this non-essential greenery?” call the taxpayer watchdogs. With a slow smile, the Shade Tree Commissioner answers, “Trees’ planting and pruning are more than paid for through the additional revenues they bring to the property values.” In other words, West Windsor’s trees are a profit-making venture.
Problem was, after Sandy, thousands of these hefty profit-makers have thudded to earth, and it took months to get rid of them. In West Windsor only 50 trees fell onto homes and had to be immediately removed. Those that did not fall into public avenues became the homeowner’s problem.
Sooner or later, every homeowner should look up to the sky and eye carefully those beloved trees towering overhead. Where will it land when its turn comes to fall? When the time comes to consider removing a tree, think first before you arm yourself with axe, loppers, and chainsaw. Dobromilsky recommends a few guidelines:
1. Above all, don’t over react. Assess whether you can, or want to, save the tree. If it’s a small tree tipped over most of the way, the answer is no. Odds are very slim that you can upright it, stake it down, and have it survive. The roots are typically so stressed and exposed that they will not be able to reassert themselves.
2. Consider an arborist rather than a tree surgeon. Joe’s Tree & Stump Grinding Service is expert, not surprisingly, at removing trees, not saving them. Sally’s Tree Boutique, likewise, plans only to sell you more stock. If you want to save your planting, visit www.njarboristsisa.com and select a certified arborist near you. Also, ask for proof of insurance and references.
3. Prune or cut a damaged branch right at the trunk, but not so close as to damage the trunk’s bark. Keep your tools sharp.
4. Don’t try to reshape a tree by cutting lateral branches, and do not top trees. Cutting off everything above a certain level produces a host of waterspouts — weak-branched suckers that grow swiftly upwards and are very likely to break off at the joint.
5. Do prune out all dead wood. It will send more sap from the roots into those remaining branches.
6. When you place a ladder against a tree tie it off to a solid part of the trunk (not above where you are cutting, thank you.) Loose ladders leaning against trees are called “widow makers” for a reason.
7. If you’ve had no real experience felling a tree so it lands in the desired direction, don’t be stupid. Find someone who has. And just to make sure, rope up the branch with a long line and have a buddy on the ground guiding its fall path.
8. The branches and brush you personally cut may be placed on the curb for township removal. All brush and stumps gathered by contracted services must be removed by them. Make sure that’s understood in the contract.
When replanting, use common sense. We are enamored of speed. We want our luxuriantly arbored property back exactly the way it was in September. Trees, however, gain grandeur with time. So it is best to accept that, and when replanting consider a few tips that will ward off repeated devastation.
1. Select appropriate varieties. Holly is not a bush — it is a tree. A 50-footer will merrily sprawl over 35 feet of yard. So unless you’ve got acreage, beware. During Sandy and the following nor’easter, Dobromilsky noted that most of the fallen trees were those with late-holding leaves — pines, pears, pin and sawtooth oaks. You may want to avoid planting these close to the windward side of your home.
2. Placement. Generally, it is unwise to place any tall-growing, full canopied tree closer to your buildings than the topmost limits of the tree’s mature height. Trees get wider as they get taller. Don’t fight it; find that maximum width and give it room. Topping the tree only makes it wider.
3. You’re planting it why? Do you want this tree to provide shade? Then try a nice linden, oak, beech, or maple that may be easily pruned underneath and still shelter your swing or picnic table. If you want a feature tree to draw attention, follow Dobromilsky’s power-line selections of lilac, redbud, or shad.
And if you want to screen away those unsightly neighbors, yes, put down those pines. Instead of putting them fence-post close, give them mature breathing room, and in the meantime, plant some temporary forsythia for screening.
4. Pruning. Oceans of ink have been spilled on proper pruning methods. The one hint we would offer is that trees are resilient living things. Cutting them anywhere sends a message to grow somewhere else. So before you cut, consider the new path you are urging this tree to take.
Despite the ravages of Sandy, I look forward to my next homeward flight and the opportunity to become again impressed with our lushly treed corner of the Garden State.
Nearly 20 years ago, when the D&R Canal was being dredged, work crews cut down whole sections of trees along the canal. I stood as the lone environmentalist against hordes of outraged tree lovers, trying to reassure them that before they knew it, new, highly water-fed trees would resurrect from the stumps.
Today you cannot discern that any trees were ever cut. So again natural history will repeat itself. And with a little help from experts such as Dobromilsky, our community will remain a lush, thriving one where one instinctively wants to set one’s roots.
#b#Mulchers, Beware#/b#
Simply, they are bad in every way. Erupting all over our most manicured landscapes, those lava-black piles of commercial mulch mounded against otherwise healthy trees provide easy circles for those on riding mowers. They offer landscapers a little extra cash. And as to appearance, they are either esthetic or an uglification, depending on your point of view. But right there, any benefit ends.
Dobromilsky explains that such mulch piles entice roots to bud out and encircle the tree like honeysuckle vines until it becomes choked by its own roots. Mice absolutely adore such piles as cozy nesting homes — great for breeding and feeding on the nice chewable bark, as long as the tree lives.
Boring insects also find ideal food and lodging. Further, the consistency of the wood mulch doesn’t absorb enough water to feed the root system, but just enough to encourage rot. Finally, as lawn mowers swing around the mound, they toss up clods and clippings, demanding more mulch, higher volcanoes, and more danger to the tree. In short, they are like applying an expensive, dirty bandage to a sensitive area — not good for health or for pocketbook.
