Summertime in Wellesley — hydrangeas and the Station Oak

Summer in Wellesley…hydrangeas, front porch, green grass. Ah, now that’s suburban livin’

Just a reminder that proper dog-walking etiquette demands that you never leave behind “gifts” in the lily-of-the-valley beds.

The Station Oak in all its glory. Located at the Wellesley Square post office, the 150+ year-old Black Oak tree provides shade and a sense of permanence to an area where mail never stays in one place and people come and go on the commuter rail.

The beloved Station Oak is 70-feet tall with multiple lower branches that extend over 80 feet horizontally.

This gracious tree doesn’t remain upright on its own. Hartney Greymont, a Needham-based landscaping company that also cares for trees in Boston’s Post Office Square, the Boston Common, and Harvard University, has been caring for the tree since the early 1980s and officially adopted it about 13 years ago.

Hartney Greymont provides their ward with the basics. They keep the soil and rooting environment healthy through aeration, composting, and mulching — efforts which have rewarded the team with a success and the tree with large leaves and lush, dark green growth.

When the going gets tough, like a few years ago when the lowest limb cracked and was laying on the ground, they provided more serious interventions. To mitigate that near-disaster, Hartney Greymont worked with the town to pull the limb back up and cable it to the limbs around it. At the same time they pruned all of the long heavy limbs to reduce and remove excess weight. They then installed multiple cables to support other limbs as well.

The company provides this work pro bono but if they were to send a bill, Wellesley would be into tree care for approximately $3,000 – $5,000 a year. Can’t help but think that if I make it to 150 it’s likely that I will also need upward of $3,000 – $5,000 worth of work annually. Hopefully someone will be thoughtful enough to support my limbs when that time comes. Doubt I’ll get all that pro bono, though.