Search Results for: trees cut down

Wellesley stumped by missing pine trees at Beebe Meadow

November 29, 2017 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Wellesley’s Natural Resources Commission recently discovered that three pine trees, planted in Beebe Meadow for Arbor Day 2016 by Tenacre Country Day School students and the Department of Public Works, have been cut down without permission.

Quite the Mys-tree.

Here are the before… Beebe meadow trees

…and after photos:

Beebe meadow trees

“The stumps are weathered, so our best guess is the vandalism took place sometime this summer or early this fall,” says Stephanie Hawkinson, who coordinates environmental education and outreach for the NRC.

DPW staff found the stumps during their pre-winter mow of the area, she says.

Naturally, it’s illegal to cut down trees on town-owned land, and it’s also not cool to dump trees and other debris on such property.

Keep in mind, too, that Christmas trees are available locally from such sources at Boy Scout Troop 185 in Wellesley.

MORE: Wellesley art mystery — those Hardy school chalk outlines

Wellesley College ravens are back for a fourth consecutive year

March 10, 2017 by Deborah Brown 1 Comment

The ravens are back at the Wellesley College Science Center for the fourth consecutive year, and Mama Pauline is incubating four eggs. Papa Henry is still right by her side as the pair readies themselves for the work of raising their clutch up from hungry chicks to fledglings.

You can see all the doings right here on the live ravencam.

“Ours is the first opportunity to closely observe this most creative of birds in close contact with people,” noted Professor of Biological Sciences Nicholas Rodenhouse when the birds established themselves at Wellesley in 2014. A 24/7 video recording of the nest made over the course of the spring nesting has provided a unique cache of data for researchers.

It’s not easy to conjure ideas of spring and rebirth and awakening while outside the snow swirls and arctic blasts blow straight through the most winter-hardy soul, but Pauline’s feathers aren’t a bit ruffled by the weather. She and Henry are flexible that way. Ravens typically settle down in areas more rural than Wellesley, but finding the “right” neighborhood doesn’t seem to matter much to those two free spirits. Wellesley suits them just fine year after year, despite the warnings of their in-laws and the sniffs of their friends.

The truth is, they are real estate pioneers who have alit on a bargain. According to Rodenhouse, Pauline and Henry probably chose the campus for its cliff-like buildings in a productive landscape. The Science Center, surrounded by shrubs and trees, sits along an open, sometimes damp, meadow. Their nest is high up in a partially glass-enclosed fire escape on the sunny side of the building from where they can see Galen Stone Tower, Houghton Chapel, more trees and open spaces, and Lake Waban.

Sounds perfect. Wonder if they list it on airbnb when they’re not in residence.

Timber! Trees going down along Wellesley Brook Path

July 23, 2013 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Around a dozen trees have been marked for obliteration along the Brook Path in Wellesley (was running at the time, forgive me if my count is off a bit). The trees identified are in poor health or otherwise endanger the public.

Though it was this tree below, which is situated among a bunch that are marked but wasn’t marked for take-down itself, that I avoided getting too close to.

Wellesley this month has been recognized with a Tree City USA Award for the 30th consecutive time. According to a press release: “The award was given in recognition of the Natural Resources Commission’s and Department of Public Works’ proactive and ambitious public tree management program that preserves and protects over 10,000 Town-owned trees for the enjoyment of the public and the enhancement of Wellesley’s environment.”

RELATED: Fuller Brook Park project

Down go the Wellesley Catalpa trees

October 12, 2012 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Wellesley this week is chopping down a bunch of Catalpa trees lining Washington Street down near Wellesley College and towards the Hunnewell estates (as we mentioned would happen in July).

These are not your everyday disposable Wellesley trees though. Plans are to give the trees new life by instituting a “propagation plan using cuttings from the trees,” according to a Natural Resources Commission meeting held over the summer, where it was decided the trees were all hurting, from having been hit by cars or decaying from age or other factors.

The trees were planted by Mr. Wellesley himself, H.H. Hunnewell, ages ago to see if the Catalpa wood would serve well as railroad ties, but it didn’t, according to Hunnewell’s grandson, Willard.

Wellesley executes Operation Goat to restore butchered Boulder Brook Reservation

May 25, 2012 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

A herd of goats arrived at Wellesley’s Boulder Brook Reservation by goatmobile on Wednesday and stealthily worked through Friday to help restore woodlands destroyed by a property manager’s workers behind a Weston resident’s home. The notorious 2010 incident involved about 100 trees being cut down illegally.

The Wellesley Natural Resources Commission kept this week’s operation quiet, posting signs discouraging trail users to stay off the Rocky Ledges portion of the Boulder Brook Reservation, but making no mention of the special-guest animals. Meanwhile, the goats (from Goat Girls farm in Amherst) munched away on invasive plants — oriental bittersweet, poison ivy, etc. — while contained within fences that were moved around during the week. This enabled the town to get rid of invasives, which have flourished due to the reduction in tree canopy resulting from the tree cutting, without resorting to herbicides.

The town received $140K from the property owner and property manager for the tree-cutting incident, and presumably is using that money to fund the restoration of the area.

Assuming the goats did a good job, we might consider hiring that industrious lot to take over at the Rockland Street bridge project, which has been delayed due to contractual complications, but is still expected to be done by September, according to the Mass Department of Transportation.

Boulder Brook trees cut in feb 2010 — Tree-cutting aftermath from 2010 in Boulder Brook Reservation

A brief recent history of Wellesley’s love/hate relationship with trees

April 21, 2011 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

Little white signs are popping up all over town (see map) warning that the Wellesley Department of Public Works will be spraying trees to help protect them from winter moth caterpillars through about the end of May. The DPW’s Mike Quinn has written that residents and businesses should contact arborists to deal with privately-owned trees and keep their fingers crossed that a UMass program to fight evil winter months with superhero parasitic flies will help put an end to spraying.

Of course winter storms probably took care of some of the weaker trees already.

Meanwhile, the town recently passed during Town Meeting a new set of rules to preserve/protect trees in town (here’s a draft of the bylaw from early March). The bylaw calls on property owners/developers to either replace trees they cut down to make way for construction projects or put money into a town tree bank that will fund tree plantings and tree care. The bylaw had its share of backers and opponents, many of which felt the rules infringed on owners’ property rights.

Wellesley Real Estate’s Bill FitzPatrick blogged this week about the pros and cons of the bylaw, but concluded: “Unfortunately, it’s impossible to legislate good taste and neighborliness.”

The bylaw was approved just a couple of months after the town settled for $140K in damages in the case of the tree-cutting fiasco at Boulder Brook Reservation by an abutting neighbor’s overexhuberant property management team.

Town Meeting members also okayed the tree-lined Brookside Road’s designation as a scenic road.

Wellesley Rotarians this month are joining forces this month with the Wellesley DPW to bag tree seedlings that will be distributed to an army of school children in town in hopes they’ll celebrate Arbor Day on April 29 by planting the trees in their yards. This should keep Wellesley’s standing in the Tree City USA program strong for years to come — Wellesley is listed as having been part of the program for 27 years.

Separately, residents earlier this month were wondering what was up at Tenacre School, which cut down a bunch of trees to make way for a new playing field along Grove Street and Benvenue Street. The head of school wrote to explain “we hope that all will be pleased with the end result— a beautiful new field, better traffic flow and improved landscaping that includes numerous new trees that will border the field.”

And over at Linden Square, work crews have been toiling away over the past month or so adding to the tree-lined-ness of the shopping district in hopes of giving it a more friendly, walkable feel. A bunch of trees were also added to the space last year.

Finally, on a recent trek across the Sudbury Trail in Wellesley, the carcasses of dead Christmas trees could be seen littering the sides of the aqueduct, not far from where some lazy people could have brought them to the RDF for recycling.

Get out and enjoy the town’s trees this spring on a series of guided walks organized by the Wellesley Trails Committee. The first heads to Boulder Brook Reservation on April 30, and walks in May and June will hit the Town Forest (view of the Esker Trail seen here), Centennial Reservation and more.

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Wellesley trees whacked

February 13, 2010 by Bob Brown 1 Comment

Wellesley Townsman reported on more than 90 trees being illegally cut down at Wellesley’s Boulder Brook Reservation Trail at the direction of a property manager for Weston’s Steve Belkin, owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks (who once had a player named Tree Rollins who was involved in a classic basketball game fight with current Wellesley resident and ex-Celtics player Danny Ainge. The story goes that Rollins bit Ainge, leading to headlines of “Tree bites man”) and Belkin Farm in Natick.

In case you’re wondering what the damage looks like, here are some pictures we snapped today.

Channel 5 Boston also paid a visit to the site.

By the way, the Wellesley Trails Committee will be hosting a walk at Boulder Brook on June 5 from 9-10am, so you can get a look at what’s become of the area then (here’s info on that and other guided walks this spring).

The Wellesley Natural Resources is figuring out how much the fine should be for the tree cut-down, for which the property manager is very apologetic. He insists Belkin and family weren’t looking to cut down trees for a better view, but rather, appreciated the privacy given by the trees. As for Belkin, he is quoted in the Towmsman piece as saying: “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Maybe one teensy timely silver lining: This tree stump looks like a Valentine:

(Disclosure: I’m on the trails committee)

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