Libby Shaw
A row of dead trees planted in the parking lot of the new CVS in Coolidge Square.
To the Editor:
This week Councilor Angie Kounelis brought to Watertown’s official attention the terrible condition of brand new landscaping in the East End CVS parking lot. Trees for Watertown asks Watertown citizens to join in demanding a strong municipal response.
The landscaping plan in the CVS parking lot was approved by the Planning Board and Planning Department. But what Watertown approved was a pretty picture, not a functional plan, and Watertown is now reaping the ugly consequences.
1. All 21 arbor vitae saplings planted in the parking lot are dead or dying.
2. The three red maple trees planted in the parking lot are badly planted. Each shows one or more of the following planting issues which compromise the health of the tree.
- The root ball is encased in rock-hard clay soil.
- The tree is planted askew.
- The root ball is planted too deep.
- The trunk base is buried in mulch.
3. The sycamore tree planted on Wells Avenue is of unacceptable structural quality. It should be replaced and the replacement tree correctly planted.
4. Yew bushes are inappropriately planted between the public shade trees on Wells Avenue. The yews will increasingly compete for soil and nutrients in that confined soil volume, compromising the health of these public shade trees. Everything should be done to support the health of these trees, which are an important environmental screen for neighboring Wells Avenue homes.
The following fundamentals of urban landscaping are well understood by competent landscape designers and landscape maintenance companies.
- Proper planting technique for long term tree health
- The importance of keeping new plantings well watered
- The importance of ensuring adequate soil volume for tree root systems
- The importance of adequate water supply for plantings surrounded by hardscape
Yet rather than the environmental enhancement promised by CVS developers, we’re seeing another blighted parking lot. Why did Watertown allow this to happen?
Libby Shaw
A sycamore tree that was planted askew in the parking lot behind CVS in East Watertown.
This situation can be fixed: Trees can be competently replanted. The yew bushes can be removed. The parking lot landscaping can be responsibly watered and cared for.
However replanting can’t and shouldn’t happen right away – it would be far better for the health of the trees to wait to replant until after the heat of summer. Meanwhile the parking lot remains a blight on the neighborhood and a season of green improvement for the local environment has been squandered needlessly.
Sound planting design, optimal planting technique and responsible maintenance of greenscape should be a requirement for development approval in Watertown, and municipal oversight is vital. We appreciate that Watertown is moving in this direction, but the situation at the East End CVS is an obvious indication of failed process.
Please ask Watertown to improve the quality of municipal oversight so that the CVS landscaping failures are corrected and so that new developments coming up for approval actually do provide the long-lasting environmental improvements and beautification their developers promise. We need healthy shade trees!
A good place to start is by writing your Town Councilor. Town Councilor contact information is listed on the Watertown website at http://www.ci.watertown.ma.us/Directory.aspx?DID=89. If you’re not sure who your councilor is, a voting precinct map is available at http://www.watertown-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/4152.
Thank you,
Libby Shaw
on behalf of Trees for Watertown
http://treesforwatertown.org
How about some concern for the massive amount of electric wires running the length of the new hotel on Arsenal st?
Just further proof that Robert Korff did a slipshod job with the whole development. The building is a cheap piece of you know what, and the landscaping is dying, the trees are badly planted. Heck of a job Korffy! Some of us knew you didn’t give a hoot about our community.
How is the building a cheap piece of you know what? Actually, the builders, DF Pray, did a nice job with it. I think the problem with the landscaping has been lack of water. New plants, shrubs need water for the root systems to develop and for the plant to absorb the shock of transplant. We’re in a drought and I do not think that the CVS has anyone out there with a hose. If you want to throw stones, look across the street at the 7-11, a real pit of a building, surrounded by trash. Why doesn’t the Town of Watertown do something about that? Or, the cesspool of a laundry next to Coolidge Square Liquors??
It’s a cheap aluminum stud building with fake brick veneer that does’t even match up in places. It’s banal strip mall architecture and doesn’t even look nearly as good as the renderings. I mean c’mon Fred, get real. The older buildings around it will last longer. The neighborhood was right to oppose it and it doesn’t appear to be doing big business.
I live near the 7-11 and the trash you talk about always winds up on my lawn. It was a major mistake allowing the theatre to be torn down years ago. But there are many wonderful stores in Coolidge Square that have no future if we keep allowing bad development bad developers and bad development to take a unique place and turn it into a place like thousands of others.
I point to Red Lentil and the new Thai restaurant as the kind of new businesses that enhance Coolidge Square–locally owned small business that are unique. Coolidge Square is turning into a food mecca of sorts and that can only be good for Watertown. Or perhaps you prefer another storefront ATM?
The cesspool of a laundry? Lots of people in the neighborhood depend on that laundry Fred. Do you have a problem with the types of people who use it, maybe? You seem to be the house dyspeptic, Fred.
Where was this uproar when those terrible trees were planted along Orchard St at victory field and almost instantly died? The town spent millions on a field it couldn’t pay for then blocked it off with ugly dead trees
A thoroughly thought out article, Libby. Thank you. It sounds from your analysis that the soils were not prepared from the get-go and the trees and shrubs weren’t all in excellent shape to begin with, and didn’t have a chance, particularly given the lack of watering. How did this happen is indeed the operative question. And it has happened all around town. We have to support our green infrastructure and if our tree warden needs funding, or community support, the Council needs to know and we all need to react. How terrible to have lost an entire growing season to negligence. Let’s fix this and prepare for future development projects and future plantings. Does the Conservation Commission also have a role here? Should Trees for Watertown sit in on the Site Plan Review interdepartmental meetings with the developers? How do we develop effective oversight? Does the budget need emergency action? Is the Town Council the organization representing the citizens that is the only responsible party left standing? If so, better get moving to save what little we have left and demand substitutions of trees and total renovation of planting beds when the weather is right. It seems that this is another situation in which action was taken before appropriate planning. I hope that Watertown will look again at its procedures. The community deserves better.
This article shows how crazy our town has become. A few shrubs die and we want the Town Council to get involved. Why doesn’t the Town Council demand that the existing parks – which are in terrible shape – be better maintained. I go to parks and see trash can overflowing, yellow burned grass, and litter all over the place. Let’s see our tax dollars at work keeping our parks green. My friends and I care more about that than a few trees in a parking lot.