Detroit: City of Trees

[highjinx]

Unknown elm tree lined street.

[Brian1979]

I'm pretty sure there is still a HP city limit sign on Oakland, it's in the boulevard median between Woodland and Tennyson. I believe a Detroit city limit sign is absent from there though.

[kryptonite]

The Dutch Elm Disease was a true tragedy for Detroit and other Midwestern cities that had planted millions of them because they are the perfect shade tree and prior to the disease were highly disease resistant. My family had moved to the Akron, OH area and I remember visiting relatives in Detroit and noticing that their elm trees were dying the same way our elm trees were dying in OH. What an aesthetic disaster. Then 30 years later the Ash borer disease did much the same to another good disease resistant shade tree. Now Detroit and other cities are planting a variety of trees which includes less desirable types such as sycamore.

There are new strains of the American Elm that are unaffected by DED and even a new strain of Eastern Chestnut that I believe has been genetically modified to be immune to the fungus. That was also an awesome tree.

And Trees of Heaven? A crap tree in North America, it is native to eastern Asia where it is known as Silktree and is used in the silk industry. The leaves feed silkworms.

it's odd that someone resurrected this thread, only yesterday I found and 'liked' Greening of Detroit on Facebook.

[Bluenote132003]

I always wanted this job as a kid!

[Danny]

Detroit was the city of trees all the way down to the end of the Mayor Pingree days. by the 1950s Dutch Elm disease took its toll of most of the Dutch Elm trees. By the late 1990s some strange bugs eat the most of Ash trees from the inside out. Most of the Ash trees started to tumble and fall.


Hopefully the Asian Longhorn Beetles didn't came to Metro-Detroit Area and eat our trees up.

[Wheels]

Attachment 12132

Here's what Dutch elm disease did to one street in Detroit between 1971 and 1984. This happened on thousands of streets across North America between the 1930s and 1970s.
Photos: Jack Barger/U.S. Forest Service


Although the disease is thought to have arrived sometime in the 50s the full destruction took well into the 70s.

[kryptonite]

Exactly, DED started appearing in NE Ohio very late 1960's and soon after that in Detroit elms. It appeared first on the east coast and moved westward, taking out almost every American Elm in every area it appeared. Slippery Elm and Rock Elm are less susceptible, particularly Rock Elm, which is not a particularly good shade tree though.

Some good news - Ash trees are now treatable. I have two 8-10" diameter White Ash trees that are now thriving again. They fought off the emerald ash borers for a couple of years and when I read that a treatment called Treeage was nearly 100% effective and sanctioned by the state of MI, I made a few calls and found someone to treat the two trees. Treatment is repeated every two years at approximately $125 per tree [[based on size of tree). My trees look very good now, the bark is recovering and their foliage is normal for ash trees of their size.

[jon]

We don't have much of a canopy in our neighborhood but it has allowed enormous trees to grow up as if they were in a prairie. The variety of horse chestnuts, cottonwoods, catalpas and even a few mighty elms make spring and summer delightful with flowers and floating fuzz.

A note on ash trees. The federal government has been introducing a couple tiny wasps that eat the bugs that eat the ash trees. They're smaller than a poppy see but seem to push back the numbers of ash borers quite a bit. Since dead ash will stump sprout, you can easily get a new ash tree from a dead one by picking a straight, strong sprout, staking it up until it's strong enough to fend for itself and cutting back the rest [[you have to keep on this for a little while, they keep coming). Since the root system is already developed, you'll have a real street tree in 2-3 years.

[kryptonite]

If anyone is looking for a tree or trees, I found this non-profit organization that ships bare-root seedlings via priority mail. http://www.arborday.org/trees/index.cfm

I had two awful Norway Maples cut down three years ago and two years ago I ordered a Tulip Tree and a Catalpa from Arbor Day. They have done very well and are nearly as tall as me [[6') after only two summers. They are inexpensive and they do well if you plant them according to instruction and give them a bit of follow up care.

Bare root trees are a great solution for people without the money to purchase nursery trees. Plus bare root seedlings grow remarkably fast whereas root-bound nursery trees grow at a much slower pace. In less than five years a bare-root seedling is going to be taller than most nursery trees. And Arbor Day offers a huge variety of trees.

[jiminnm]

Several years, we worked with Global Releaf on getting trees planted in our Detroit suburb.
http://www.americanforests.org/

[hermousefriday]

Apparently Brightmoor was the only city in the area that wasn't hit by Dutch Elm. I wonder why?

[Henry Whalley]

The elms were humanizing. The single best thing Detroit could do would be to replant American elms on every residential street. New strains exist that are resistant to Dutch Elm Disease. They don't mind salt. They grow three feet per year and canopies would return in five or six years. Good for the soul.

[MrMichigan]

Does anyone know if Hantz Group is going to continue planting trees on the east side? There are a few parcels of saplings [[in somewhat rough shape) but nothing else from what I've seen. Granted, I haven't driven through the area in a bit.

[Brock7]

This healthy Detroit tree down the street from me I think is an elm.

[Satiricalivory]

The elms were humanizing. The single best thing Detroit could do would be to replant American elms on every residential street. New strains exist that are resistant to Dutch Elm Disease. They don't mind salt. They grow three feet per year and canopies would return in five or six years. Good for the soul.

As far as I know there is still no elm that is guaranteed resistant. It is still a risk to plant hybrid elms. There are many hybrid elm trees on Washington Boulevard in Downtown.

[Henry Whalley]

As far as I know there is still no elm that is guaranteed resistant. It is still a risk to plant hybrid elms. There are many hybrid elm trees on Washington Boulevard in Downtown.

I’m no expert. But I think the new hybrids are rated with a probability of failure, e.g., 7% of American Elms Strain X may succumb to Dutch Elm Disease [[just a fictitious example.) Whereas the original strain was 100% susceptible.