Citizens of the 91探花love their trees. In fact, they love them so much that they can get quite exercised when they see someone chopping off limbs, or, heaven forbid, taking down a whole tree.
For those people the 91探花gardeners have a message: 鈥淲e鈥檙e on your side!鈥� Getting rid of tree branches or whole trees, they say, is done only when it鈥檚 absolutely necessary.
Gardeners are, in fact, always looking out for the trees. It鈥檚 their job to monitor the trees鈥� health, identify trees in trouble and decide when a tree needs surgery or an assisted death. And when it comes time to cut back or take out a tree, it鈥檚 usually the gardeners who have to do the job. Only if the tree is inaccessible to a boom lift truck and thus has to be climbed is the work contracted out.
鈥淭here鈥檚 an arborist who comes out about once a month,鈥� says gardener lead Gordon Yumibe. 鈥淲e try to identify trees with problems and have him look at them and help us decide what to do.鈥�
There was a time when the campus had its own arborist, but because of budget cuts he wasn鈥檛 replaced when he left, so now the gardeners are on their own, with a little consultation.
To help them in their task, they have a new piece of equipment called a resistograph. Essentially, it鈥檚 a machine that measures the resistance of a drill probe going in to the tree and prints out a graph that shows how much of the wood is sound and where it鈥檚 decayed.
But evaluating trees isn鈥檛 an exact science. 鈥淛ust because a tree is decayed doesn鈥檛 mean it has to be taken out,鈥� says Grounds Supervisor Bonnie Taylor. 鈥淚t depends on how much decay there is and where that decay is located.鈥�
Gardeners try to take a conservative approach, she says. When possible, they take only the portion of the tree that鈥檚 already dead. The resistograph helps them do that 鈥� permitting measurements where before they had to go on appearance. But the matter of safety always looms large.
鈥淪ometimes I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about the trees,鈥� Yumibe admits.
The worry, of course, is that a tree limb or a whole tree will come crashing down and injure or kill someone.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to take out what we have to and preserve the rest but it鈥檚 a tough call sometimes,鈥� Yumibe says. 鈥淭here are walkways around the trees, and people like to sit under them. We鈥檙e really cognizant of the fact that it鈥檚 a safety issue but there鈥檚 a large cry for preservation too and we have to balance it out.鈥�
His biggest worry right now is the Big Leaf Maples on campus, some of which are very large and old enough that they have a variety of diseases and injuries. Gardeners are keeping an especially close eye on those.
But Taylor says that, in a way, all the campus trees are under scrutiny. 鈥淲e鈥檙e short staffed right now,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ut trees are a high priority. If you鈥檝e got some ground cover, say, that needs work, you can put that off. Trees, on the other hand, we always have to pay attention to.鈥�