By Sara Santiago
An Arbor Day tradition, Urban Resources Initiative and Professor Mark Ashton’s silviculture course teamed up to plant five street trees on Winchester Avenue across from Yale Printing and Publishing Services. Planting season is well underway across New Haven, and we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate that than a collaboration.
Ash trees previously lined this stretch of Winchester until they were killed by emerald ash borer. Rather than planting five of the same species, URI’s GreenSkills Manager Miche Palmer ’17 MEM and Associate Director Chris Ozyck chose Kentucky coffee, Shumard oak, hackberry, and red maple trees to replace the ash. By identifying a mix of species that are suitable to the exact microclimates of this site, such as the extent of power lines, traffic, and full sun, URI aims to prevent this street’s trees from being wiped out by a single pest or pathogen again.
Led by URI staff, silviculture students celebrated their last day of class by putting theory to practice. This includes marking and preparing the sites, digging holes and removing old roots, placing the new trees in a centered position, removing the metal baskets from their root balls, filling the holes with a mix of soil and compost, and creating a donut shaped soil and mulch topper to retain water. The following photos show it all.
With each of these steps, URI and students set up these trees for success into the future. Bill Carone from Yale Facilities is the trees’ adopter—the person who will steward and water the trees going forward. This ensures that the trees will survive and flourish in their new home. We look forward to seeing their vibrant leaves grow and change in future seasons!
URI opened up the concrete to expand the pits that once homed ash trees and are now ready for new life. Photos by Sara Santiago.
The URI team moves seamlessly to block off and prepare the planting sites before the silviculture students arrive.
Greenskills intern Michael Freiburger rolls the Shumard oak to its planting location.
URI’s Miche Palmer (center) quizzes students on why the chosen tree species are appropriate for the site.
Before the hard work commences, there’s time for some laughs and comradery amongst the students, Professor Mark Ashton, and the URI crew.
The tree planters break into teams, grab shovels, and start digging the holes to plant each of the five trees.
Students dig and measure the growing hole while URI’s Director Colleen Murphy-Dunning shovels compost from the URI truck bed, mixing it with the earth that will cover the tree.
When it is too difficult to break the remaining ash roots with a shovel, URI’s Field Crew Leader Will Tisdale cuts through them with an electric saw.
Students remove the twine and open the burlap covering the tree root ball while feeling for the root flare.
Meanwhile, another group rolls their tree into the cleared hole.
Kumba Jammeh ‘24 MFS cuts through the metal basket to release the tree root ball.
The team takes a step back to make sure the tree is positioned perfectly upright to help the tree establish apical dominance.
The key to urban street tree planting is not to create a mulch volcano but a mulch donut, which helps the tree retain water.
Five trees and three hours later, the group completes the planting and looks forward to wrapping up the semester.
