About 80 percent of the trees planted in downtown Montpelier are not faring well, facing urban challenges that don’t support their longterm health and growth. The city is taking steps to try to improve the longevity of its trees. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Montpelier residents have a particular attachment to some of the trees that line their streets. Each year, the fall colors of the century-old Barre Street ginkgo tree elicit social media posts and calls to come admire the foliage.  But according to Alec Ellsworth, the city’s tree warden, Montpelier’s trees are not faring well. About 80% of the 50 trees downtown are in decline. Ten are actively dying, and 12 are at “high risk” due to the emerald ash borer, a pervasive pest targeting ash trees.  It’s not just Montpelier facing this problem. Ellsworth said it’s part of an all-too-common pattern of cities planting trees in ways that don’t allow them to grow and thrive.  “Trees are just plunked in a little four-by-four tree well … and then, let’s say eight years later, the tree has died, and you replant it, and then five, eight years later it dies again,” he said.  “But maybe by that point the person in charge of the trees has moved on, and so there’s no institutional knowledge, so they think, ‘Oh, something must have gone wrong.’ So they replant it again and again, and so this cycle just repeats itself, where it’s just a giant waste of time and money,” he said.  Montpelier is trying a new approach, the Stockholm planting method, that’s becoming more common around the world, as urban arborists look to improve the longevity of trees and respond to increasingly common stressors like heat, pollution and pests.  “There’s definitely a big national movement in urban forestry to do more thoughtful planting processes,” Ellsworth said.  The method involves creating a “structural soil” that includes rocks and biochar, according to the Stockholm Tree Pits website. It is meant to provide more water, air exchange and space for roots to grow, allowing trees to stay healthier and reach their full potential as shade providers.  Urban planners of decades past were able to plant trees in small spaces, in part because two particular tree groups — ashes and elms — were able to thrive in those conditions. But Dutch elm disease almost completely wiped out urban elm trees in North America, and the emerald ash borer has threatened to do the same for ash trees.   Along with pests, urban trees have seen rising threats from climate change, construction damage and road salt. “There’s not as much variety of trees that can handle the semi-punishing environment of a downtown urban landscape,” Ellsworth said.  Ellsworth said that better planting methods can also save money for cities in the long run. Montpelier spends an average of $10,000 to plant a single tree, which he said was on the cheaper side because they do so much work in-house.  “If you buy a tree at Gardener’s Supply, it’s going to be $600 or something, and then you pay somebody $500 to put it in,” he said. “You can get a tree in the ground and it might live five, even 10 years, but it will never grow big, and then you just repeat the cycle. So, is it cheaper just to plant a tree for $1,000 that’s gonna live for only 10 years?”  He gave the example of a tree he recently removed from its location outside of Capitol Grounds on State Street. The tree was roughly 25 to 30 years old, but it had barely grown since the day it was planted in 2002.  “Your businesses, your pedestrians, your visitors, people want to see big, beautiful shade trees,” he said.   Shade trees can provide direct cooling to sidewalks, roads and store fronts, making downtown areas more comfortable to be in. Ellsworth has gone around the city with a heat gun and seen the drop in temperature of more than 10 degrees between the sidewalk in the summer sun and a bench sitting in the shade.  Montpelier is also partnering with the University of Vermont to study nine tree wells planted using the Stockholm method to see if they help filter or collect stormwater. If the study is successful, tree wells could be added to the state’s guidance on stormwater treatment practices, Ellsworth said. Read the story on VTDigger here: Urban trees are often planted just to die. Montpelier wants to change that.. ...read more read less