Harvard residents take trees seriously. Debates over the pruning or removal of trees have cropped up at town meetings, on Nextdoor Harvard, and in letters to this paper. But early this month, Chairman Bill Calderwood of the Elm Commission asked the selectmen to consider a new policy on trees—not about cutting them, but about planting them on public land.
Calderwood presented several modifications to the town’s existing policy for tree planting at the selectmen’s June 7 meeting, having previously presented them to the School Committee, the Conservation Commission, and the Parks and Recreation Commission. The selectmen unanimously endorsed the policy as revised.
Currently, a person who wants to plant a tree on public land must get approval from the tree warden, but there has been no application form for doing so. The revised policy provides for an application.
Permission required
Families or friends sometimes plant a tree in memory of a loved one, often in a place that was important to that person. When that place is on public land, however, the planting requires approval by both the tree warden and any other committee that has jurisdiction over the site. That has been the existing policy and remains unchanged.
The correct procedure for a memorial tree, as set forth in the policy, is to make a tax-deductible donation to the Harvard Tree Fund. The recommended minimum is $500, to allow the tree warden or Elm Commission to buy a tree big enough to have a good chance of thriving (one with a trunk at least 2 inches in diameter). The donation also covers the cost of moving the tree to its new location, planting it, staking it, mulching it, and—a new but necessary requirement—maintaining it. New trees need to be watered for two or three years, until they are well established, Calderwood explained later in a phone conversation, adding that trees in Massachusetts are all under stress from about seven or eight years of drought.
Existing policy prohibits memorial markers. The revised policy that Calderwood presented to the selectmen allows for temporary memorial markers, but only when a tree is planted on public school grounds, such as the elementary school courtyard.
Calderwood said the revised policy includes five documents: the policy itself; the application form for planting a tree; a map of possible planting sites on public lands; a list of proposed tree species and locations; and a memorial tree record. Once approved, all these documents will be on the town website.
Harvard’s Elm Commission may well be the only such commission in the state, or even in the country, Calderwood said. It was established in 1974, growing out of the efforts of Bill and Anne Phair to save the elms in the center of town from the ravages of Dutch elm disease. The commission now tries to plant one to five new, young trees a year, chosen from a variety of species.
