Tree Warden To Replace Decaying Oaks Downtown with Four Elms

New Canaan’s tree warden has posted four dying pin oak trees on the first block of Elm Street downtown and plans to replace them with disease-resistant American elms.

Four decaying pin oak trees on Elm Street are to be replaced by American elms, under a plan from New Canaan’s tree warden. Credit: Michael Dinan

The “New Harmony” variety is crossbred with other resistant elms and “it’s the same branch pattern as an American elm, same type of shade tree as an American elm,” Tree Warden Bob Horan told NewCanaanite.com.

“They will be a decent size tree, probably somewhere in a 3.5- to 4-inch caliper and what’s nice about these trees it will put elm trees back on Elm. It’s a straight trunk with that vase-shaped arching pattern, easily pruned so we can get some height out of them, so we won’t be hiding the storefronts down the road. So we are taking all of this into consideration.”

The dying pin oak trees are rotting out, as shown here. Credit: Michael Dinan

Originally known as ‘Railroad Avenue,’ Elm Street has only a few old elm trees left on it, including near the train station. The pin oaks that line much of the central street’s one-way stretch are upwards of 20 years old and are in various stages of decline, with girdling roots and misshapen branch patterns from years of pruning, Horan said.

Additional American elms will go into vacant “tree squares” in front of the Playhouse and on Park Street near the train station, Horan said.

“All these [pink oak] trees [on Elm] are going to have to be replaced at some point but these are the most critical here,” he said of the four trees that have been posted. They line the edge of the sidewalk on the southern side of Elm Street between Main and South Avenue.