City gears up for busy fall tree planting season

Kingstonregion.com
Aug. 19, 2016
By Bill Hutchins

After a summer of hearing chainsaws, it’s time to start anew.

Kingston is gearing up for its annual fall tree planting program. About 1,000 trees will be planted along streets and in parks at a cost of $79,000. Councillors awarded the contract to Drake’s Landscaping, which will charge $79 per tree to get them in the ground.

“It is a good contract,” said public works director Damon Wells.

Only two bids were submitted, but the second company was not selected because it would’ve charged nearly twice the price. The city will purchase the trees through a separate contract.

Wells says choosing sites for 1,000 new trees is a challenging task every year. “We need to scout suitable locations. It’s quite onerous for our staff to do the legwork.”

Coun. Lisa Osanic raised concerns that young trees planted on city property could die if there’s not enough after-care. It’s a message she raised earlier this summer during the prolonged drought conditions.

“We will water those trees,” Wells assured.

The work includes replacing hundreds of ash trees that were cut down this year under the ash borer tree replacement program.

The city is into its second year of chopping down dead, dying or potentially infested ash trees to control the spread of the invasive emerald ash borer. This year’s tree removal strategy is costing $88,000.

Kingston city began a massive removal of the ash tree canopy in 2015 to combat the spread of the Asian beetle, first detected in Kingston in 2013, which is slowly but steadily destroying ash trees from the inside out.

Wells says cutting down diseased trees is better than waiting for them to fall down. About 400 trees got the axe last year and another 400 are being cut down this year. “We have a budget for four years. At least for $900,000 a year. Hopefully we can do all the work we want to do within that budget. I think we’re on track to do that.”

The budget also includes treating about 600 ash trees along streets and in the parks with a special bio-insecticide injection. Officials say the cost is just too high to treat all 3,500 ash trees, which represent about 12 percent of Kingston’s urban tree canopy. The vast majority will be removed.

Wells says the 1,000 trees planted this fall will be of a larger variety to help them survive the coming winter.