OLDS — Disease, frost, bugs and deer took a toll on trees in Olds over the past year, according to parks supervisor Gillian Campbell.
In 2020, town staff removed 45 trees and replanted only 12.
Campbell said another seven or eight trees were scheduled to be removed from the cemetery before the end of March.
“Another check in late spring will have to be done and we might have to make a few quite difficult decisions on some of the big older poplar trees in our parks,” Campbell said.
Disease in a couple of trees in Lions Balsam Park and Seniors Park has gotten so bad they too may have to be removed, she said.
"The rot at the bottom of these trees has got to the stage where it possibly isn’t going to be safe to leave these trees in,” she said.
She said one tree in Senior’s Park “is starting to get into quite a dangerous state."
“There’s a lot of spongy, rotten, wet wood in at the bottom,” she said. “That's not good news, but we’ll have to do what has to be done, I suppose. We'll work that out later on this summer.”
Another unintended problem is that chemical spray drifting from business or residential areas can hurt trees.
Campbell showed a slide during a recent council meeting depicting damage to an evergreen tree at the back of Olds & District Evergreen Centre, saying it was damaged from weed killer that drifted in from a nearby business, likely on a windy day.
She said town staff weren’t responsible for that issue.
Another major problem is damage inflicted on trees by hungry deer in the community.
“It’s lovely to see deer around our parks; we all enjoy them. But they cause an awful lot of damage to our young trees,” she said.
“They do like to nip off buds, but far more damaging is when they rub their antlers up the trunk and small branches break off. Then they rub the bark encircling the whole tree. Then you’ve got a dead tree.”
Campbell showed council a slide of a tiny young tree which she said was killed by deer.
“We planted it last, I think it was the third week in October and it had been killed before the middle of November,” she said.
“The deer had actually taken the bark off right ‘round that tree. That was a complete waste of money, I suppose.”
Campbell said one solution may be to place fences around newly planted trees.
That was done in the case of a memorial tree in the new portion of the cemetery.
“They actually got that one too, but they didn’t take the bark off on the bottom, so hopefully that one will be fine,” she said.
Coun. Debbie Bennett was disappointed to learn that so many trees were taken out and so few planted last year.
“And that was before we had the budget cuts for the coming year, so I'm sad about that,” Bennett said.
Bennett agreed fencing around newly-planted trees would be a good idea.
“That would help prevent a deer buffet and we wouldn’t be replacing those trees as quickly as we might be,” she said.
