Pears to replace dead ash trees

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Ash trees line Front Street on Tuesday in downtown Traverse City. Record-Eagle/Keith King
Ash trees line Front Street on Tuesday in downtown Traverse City. Record-Eagle/Keith King

February 8, 2012

By Bill O'Brien bobrien@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Wed Feb 08, 2012, 07:19 AM EST

TRAVERSE CITY — Downtown streets in the Cherry Capital soon will bloom with the color of another fruit.

Traverse City's Downtown Development Authority will accelerate its tree replacement work this spring and plant dozens of flowering pear trees along East Front and Eighth streets. The new trees will replace ash trees, which for more than three decades lined downtown streets but succumbed to old age and an invasive pest.

"I think it's great. Get the dead trees out of here," said Jamie Roster, owner of the Cherry Stop on East Front Street.

The city replaced a few dying ash trees along Front Street last summer. Starting in mid-April, it will remove another 80 ash trees in the 200 and 400 blocks of East Front and in the 200 block of East Eighth Street. The move will rid downtown of its last ash trees.

DDA Deputy Director Rob Bacigalupi said a street tree normally lives about 15 years. Soil-filled boxes under the streets and sidewalks confine tree roots and cut into the life cycle.

The ash trees to be replaced are upward of 30 years old and exceeded their life expectancy, he said. The emerald ash borer also devastated Michigan's ash tree population.

"We've pushed them to the outer limits," Bacigalupi said. "The combination of their age and the ash borer has really done a number on them."

Downtown workers said the aging trees produced little foliage in recent years and risked becoming an eyesore.

"The ash trees don't look healthy," said Nancy Shaner, an employee at Toy Harbor on Front Street. "I remember thinking they looked kind of dead last spring."

The new trees are Pyrus calleryana, or Callery pear trees, named after a French missionary who brought the tree to the western world from its native China. It's a popular ornamental street tree because of its medium size, rapid growth, dense white flowers in the spring and bright — but late — colors each fall. The trees are vulnerable to storm and ice damage and susceptible to fire blight in humid southern regions.

Roster said the new trees will be a significant aesthetic upgrade.

"It'll be nice to have some trees down here that carry some bloom and have pretty blossoms in the summer," she said.

The project isn't cheap. Bacigalupi said the DDA will seek bids for the work, but estimates exceed $1,000 per tree because of the extensive excavation and street work required.

The city considered various types to replace the ashes, including honey locust and choke-cherry trees — considered too messy.

"Unfortunately, cherries don't make the best street trees," Bacigalupi said.

Now officials hope the pear trees can avoid the hazards that felled the ashes before them. Pear trees already line parts of Front Street and other places downtown, where there are an estimated 360 trees.

"If there's a pear blight, we'll have to replace them as well," Bacigalupi said.