The City of Minneapolis tries again

[dreamshark]

For the 37 years we have lived in this house the Minneapolis Parks Department (which manages the city's trees) has been trying to get something to grow on our northern boulevard with little success. It's a difficult site - narrow, full of road salt, and with only about 18" of soil over a deep substrate of crushed rock. But the Parks Department is apparently oblivious to these challenges and keeps planting trees that cannot possible live in such an environment, like Norway maples. Two of the three they planted decades ago died and the third one is that pathetic specimen you can see at the corner down there, which somehow clings to life but never really gets any bigger. They actually found an appropriate tree when the other two maples died - some kind of dwarf flowering fruit tree - which are actually capable of growing in such a constrained spot. That was great until 2 years ago when the city DROPPED AN ASH TREE on one of them and wiped it out on the spot. Then they replaced it with something totally inappropriate called Yellowwood, which died the first summer  despite Richard watering it assiduously. 

Well, now they are trying again with some tree I have never heard of called Amur Maackia. I guess they are giving up on native trees entirely. Maybe this one will do better. sigh  

Comments

[pameladean]

I think it's like the gingko: they try it in urban environments where all else fails.

Though I can't think Amur Maackia would survive having an ash dropped on it either!

Our next-door neighbors have had similar issues with their boulevard tree, bar the ash. There was a perfectly happy Norway maple there, but the storm that took out the power to a lot of Minneapolis and environs, including at the Fourth Street hotel, around 2012 or so, damaged it, and eventually it started failing and was removed. A red oak and a hackberry have both failed to thrive. I haven't looked at the tag on the new one yet.

P.

[dreamshark]

I looked up amur maackia, and I'm actually kind of excited about it now. It looks like a pretty tree, not too big, with a shape similar to the nice-looking flowering plum you can see right in the middle of my snapshot. And, as you suggest, it is apparently an extremely hardy tree that thrives in a wide range of environments.

[pameladean]

Oh, yes, it's a beautiful leguminous tree with flowers later in the summer when all the lovely fruit trees are done. That sounds very promising.

There's apparently a cultivar produced by the U's Horticultural arm that is intended specifically for Minnesota. It's called Summertime, I think.

P.

[dreamshark]

And that would be the logical one for them to use, wouldn't it. But no, they are using one with the embarrassing name of MaacNificent® Maackia. It looks like a lovely tree too.

[quadong]

Dropped an ash tree on it? Like in the literal sense that the ash tree fell off a truck onto it by accident, or something?

[dreamshark]

It is hard to exaggerate how inept the Park Department's forestry arm can be. In the process of cutting down a nearby ash tree they somehow obliterated the poor little flowering plum about 10 feet away. I didn't actually see them do it, so I don't know if they literally dropped the ash tree on top of it or just backed their truck over it, but when the ash tree disappeared the plum tree disappeared too.

And it took them over a year to come back and remove the stump of the ash tree, which pretty much invalidates the whole premise of removing ash trees because they are all presumed to be diseased.

I hate the Parks Department.