Metro: Vancouver losing its tree canopies: Group

An article in today’s Metro about the loss of mature street trees in the city.  For the first time, Heritage Vancouver is listing Vancouver’s historic street trees on their annual “Top Ten Endangered Sites” list.  You can read the rationale on the Heritage Vancouver webpage.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Metro: Vancouver losing its tree canopies: Group

 Jeff Hodson, Metro Vancouver

The majestic tree canopies that shade Vancouver’s streets are being frittered away, warns a local heritage group.

For the first time, the city’s historic street trees have been included in Heritage Vancouver’s annual list of endangered heritage sites.

“If you look at the great cities around the world,” said Donald Luxton, president of Heritage Vancouver, “one of the things that helps define them are boulevards and canopies — and we’re losing ours.”

The issue, Luxton said, is that when trees get old and need to be replaced, they’re cut down and replaced with smaller, ornamental trees — “stunted dwarfs” that lack the size and character of the original. He points to Victory Square, where several of the city’s oldest and largest bigleaf maples were cut down and were not replaced.

The Park Board, he said, needs a one-to-one replacement strategy so that when trees are taken down they are replaced by one of the same species.

:: Read the rest of the article

Fred’s Tamarack Tree

Fred’s Tamarack  is a story of a shipyard ,  its workers and a tree that deserves to be recognized. Like many other old forgotten trees in Vancouver this Tamarack has a story to tell.

Today as you can see, it looks completely out of place with its protective screening around it , a lady who passed by  said “it looks dead.”  Well it’s a survivor , most of the other native trees were cut down, to make way for a housing development. Lucky, for when it was planted at the gate to the shipyard by  some worker, he dug the hole just outside of the legal property line.

As the Tamarack looses its needles every year and grows them back in the spring, For years I had to protect the tree in the winter from being chainsawed down by tree experts who came to the office , to tell us it was dead and needed to come down . Sure it looks kind of scruffy but it is only having its “winter rest”!  For years the Tamarack stood tall at the gate until it was topped for new powerlines, but it survived.  In Feb 1976 Fred, the skipper of a boat  the “Forest Cruiser” that worked from the B. C. Forest Service Marine Station, was killed while rescuing four other people from a sinking Beaver Float plane on the West Coast of Van. Island.  All the shipyard  workers agreed that our friend and hero should be recognized  at the shipyard site in some way. I remembered Fred asking me about the funny looking tree at the gate one day,  it looked like a tree he knew in Jamaica.  From that day on the Tamarack or Larch as some people call them , was known as “FRED’S  TREE.”  Time has passed, the shipyard was sold , the forestry workers retired or found other jobs but the Tamarack tree, or as the Southlands residents call it   “Snoopy’s Christmas Tree” is still there.  The tree is a lasting tribute and reminder of our shipyard friend and Hero Fred.  Fred’s Tree is located on Celtic Ave. between Balaclava Street and Carnarvon Street.

– Terry S. , Boat builder B. C. Forest Service Marine Station

Everything that encompasses a summer day in the city

My favourite tree is a ruby red horse chestnut that sits between the cricket pitch and the rugby pitch at Brockton Oval in Stanley Park. It’s my favourite tree because I always sit under it in the summer when I spend a weekend day at Stanley Park. It provides a great shady viewing point when watching cricket and rugby, and often has players sitting under it providing their own commentary on the matches!

The tree is at the top of a hill that looks down onto the seawall, so it a great spot for watching people making their way around. It is also a great tree to sit under when watching seaplanes taking off and landing, and for watching the cruise ships leaving for Alaska come 5 o’clock on Saturdays and Sundays!

As someone who’s not from Vancouver or used to the sunny summer days, the tree provides great shade and a place to experience everything that encompasses a summer day in the city.

– Lynsey Dobbie, Community Garden Co-Coordinator

Pretty profound Tree Awe

This gorgeous tree climbs high to the sky between Burrard and Cypress. Running home one day from work I slowed down to take in the setting sun hitting it’s ferny inhabitants. A truly magnificent tall green being, it inspired some pretty profound Tree Awe. Walking down this entire block is a symphony of thick trunks and flourishing greenery ~ highly recommended.

– Maia L.

Media Release: Vancouver Public Space Network launches “Great Trees” initiative to promote Vancouver’s urban forest

Talk about numerological alignment!  At about 4:22 this afternoon we sent out the following media advisory about the Great Tree project.

We’ve included it here in case anyone wants to have a look.

– Great Tree team

MEDIA RELEASE

Vancouver Public Space Network launches “Great Trees” initiative to promote Vancouver’s urban forest

Thursday, April 22, 2010

VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Public Space Network (VPSN) is marking Earth Day 2010 with the launch of a new initiative to raise awareness about Vancouver’s urban forest.

“Vancouver’s Great Trees” is part contest, part community-based research project – designed to inventory and map the city’s arboreal landscape.  As part of the initiative, Vancouverites are invited to submit a photo of their favourite tree, along with a short statement about what makes it “great.”  These photos will be collected on a blog and an interactive Google map, and each week, one entry will be randomly selected to win a prize.  The competition runs through summer 2010.

The Great Tree contest takes root!

It’s official!  The Great Tree contest has now launched!  Our project – which is part contest, part community-based research initiative – is live and ready to roll.

Over the next few months we hope to collect as many Great Tree stories and photos as we can.  Our aim is to document not only the many fantastic trees that can be found around Vancouver, but also something of the connections that people – residents and visitors alike – have with these trees.

To that end, we’re looking for as much help as we can get to promote the initiative around town.  We’re hoping that people will lend a hand and spread the word about the initiative through their own networks, clubs, family gatherings, school classrooms and workplaces. The more entries the better!

Of course, we hope the contest side will be a bit of an incentive – and that’s why we’ll be selecting one random entrant each week (starting the first week of May) to win a prize.  They’re small prizes, granted, but they’re good… and appropriate to the subject.

So grab your camera* and your notebook and snag a picture of your favourite tree.  Take a moment to tell us why it’s so great.  Put your tree on the map and help us promote Vancouver’s great urban forest!

* If you don’t have access to a camera don’t worry – we’ll do our best to help you get a photo!

The March of the Ents… in the West End

“Wow, you really got that Lord of the Rings thing going on with that tree out there!”

Thus spoke my Winnipegger friend upon visiting me for the first time in my new apartment. “It looks like those roots could take over the whole block!”  Until then, I had been having trouble befriending my new apartment.  While the place itself is in an exciting location, Chilco and Comox, the primary view is of a giant white Soviet-bloc style building, and this was nonplussing me.  But there was this tree too, branches bare at that time in early March, and with so many adjustments to my new environment, I had never really looked at this beauteous, gnarly, mossy sentinel right outside my balcony.  Suddenly, awoken by my friend’s comment, this tree was inviting me to other-wordly imaginings that included The March of the Ents…and my apartment, accordingly, became a magical abode.

During our ensuing tree-human courtship, I’ve realized this tree had practical intrigue as well.  In full greenery, it offers a lovely view, blocking out many of the fishbowl apartment windows across the street.  It houses a pair of raccoons from time to time, which like to hang out in its lower branches (maximizing the cuteness, minimizing the pestilence, yes!).  Its tenacious, crazy roots braiding patterns down the concrete-lined boulevard are a daily reminder that good, growing things find a way to break through in spite of it all.  And that magic might be possible.

– Catherine B.

A spindly magnolia: the little engine that could

My favourite tree in Vancouver is located on the North West corner of Cardero St and Haro St in the West End. It is a young magnolia tree.. and it’s been a bit spindly the last few years.

I love this tree because it’s like the little engine that could. There are plenty of magnolia trees across the city that are spectacular in March with blooms adorning their large canopies. With this tree it’s obvious that it dedicates a lot of energy to produce its few dozen blooms, but it’s effort is well worth it! Each flower looks like it’s sitting on its own pedestal, and the shot of bright pink against the usually gray spring skies always makes me smile.

– Emily Jubenvill, VPSN Greenspaces Coordinator