Anyone walking east on Johnson Lane en route to the EMU might notice some shade missing during the trek these days.
“It’s so weird to walk down here without that tree. Everything looks so different” Dennis “Whitey” Lueck said. Lueck is a horticulturist for the Department of Landscape Architecture. He also teaches classes and regularly gives campus tree tours. Lueck knows every tree on campus — even the ones that aren’t there anymore.
During a walk down Johnson Lane, Lueck picks up a leaf from the tree that was cut down no more than 10 minutes ago. By inspecting the leaf, Lueck can deduct that it fell from a scarlet oak, a tree that’s been growing on the University campus for around 75 years.
The fallen scarlet oak was one of 21 trees scheduled to be cut down this summer, a considerable increase from last summer.
“A lot of these trees are really just dying at the same time,” said campus arborist John Anthony. “The primary reason why a tree gets cut down is due to very poor health, which leads to a liability or a hazard for students.”
Like the scarlet oak Lueck witnessed being cut down, most of these trees are suffering from fungi fruiting bodies — in other words, rot. And it seems current campus construction is contributing to a summer rot epidemic. When construction workers repave a sidewalk or work on the exterior of a building, they have to empty out the soil near their project site to lay cement. But once the cement is in place, the tree’s most vital roots are exposed to it, which means they no longer have soil to nourish them, which leads the trees to rot.
“What’s always forgotten about is that the roots extend well beyond the tree itself. The roots aren’t just in the close surrounding area,” Lueck said.
Outside of the construction, the thousands of students and faculty who walk across the ground immensely compact the soil causing the roots to lack nourishment.
“We look at all of the trees on campus very closely. Our first business is to keep people safe from the trees, but our very next set of business is keeping the trees safe from the people,” Anthony said.
The size of the trees range from those that could almost be picked out by hand to trees that are three-and-a-half feet thick at the base. The larger trees get a second life by being turned into benches or lumber for a building. Lueck and Anthony agree the trees that do go are those that can no longer live healthy lives and become more of a danger to people every passing day. And when the trees are cut down, plant services put in a new one.
“Ten years from now, what tree is going to look better? Would you rather have an old, scary 75-year-old tree, or a young, vibrant 10-year-old tree?” Lueck said.