By James V. Horrigan
Staff Writer
It was Veterans’ Day weekend, but to a handful of people who showed up at the Scarborough Department of Public Works building last Saturday to plant a green ash tree in the DPW yard, the chilly November morning had an Arbor Day feel to it.
The flyer posted on bulletin boards in town hall and the DPW website warned participants to dress appropriately and “plan on getting dirty,” but before that happened they gathered around a table in a conference room inside the building and listened to Scarborough resident Tim Lindsay of Bartlett Tree Experts deliver an hour-long lecture on proper tree planting techniques.
Lindsay, a licensed arborist and presenter at this year’s New England Spring Flower Show in Boston, introduced himself as a “branch manager” for the century-old company, with locations in 25 states, two Canadian provinces as well as Britain and Ireland, and warmed up his audience with a joke about the tree surgeon who fell out of his patient.
The class was ostensibly for homeowners, but Scarborough Town Engineer Jim Wendel was there to learn a thing or two about basic tree installation measures, too.
“I have a fundamental problem with the use of street trees. They’re not being chosen based on the environment,” Wendel said. “My primary concern is the relationship of tree growth with infrastructure like sidewalks, roads and pavement. It’s another way to make sure from a design perspective that we get what we want, that the town is not faced with having to cut down trees 15 years from now.”
The important thing, said Aimee Dubois, the town Geographic Information Systems (GIS) coordinator, is for the town to plant trees that they can easily maintain.
With the help of Lindsay, Dubois is hoping to have Scarborough designated a Tree City USA. Sponsored by the National Arbor Day Foundation, in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters, the program provides technical assistance and offers public attention and national recognition for urban and community forestry programs meeting certain requirements.
“We have a few hoops to jump through first, but when Aimee and I figure out what those hoops are, we will apply,” Lindsay said.
In the meantime, Dubois is working on a $10,000 matching grant from the Maine Forest Service’s Project Canopy, to map existing town trees using GIS.
Lindsay pointed to a story board Dubois created on trees in general and those in Scarborough in particular and reeled off some statistics. In 50 years, one tree can recycle more than $37,000 worth of water, provide $31,000 worth of erosion control, $62,000 worth of air pollution control and produce $37,000 worth of oxygen.
“If you think about that in terms of what’s going on here, you can see the positive impact that trees have on our environment,” Lindsay said. “And this doesn’t even talk about increasing property value. They say a well-landscaped property will increase value by 15-20 percent.”
Dubois said that planting a tree should be looked at as an investment that can result in a significant return on property values.
Lindsay said planting trees not only has a positive impact on valuation; it also feels good.
“I have fun at what I do and I’m going to try and educate you the best I can. We’re going to talk about planting trees. It sounds simple and it is, kind of. We’re just going to go over the basics, like planting depth and weed control. Do we take the wire baskets off? Do we stake the trees? One of the big issues here is that people plant trees too deep.”
He pointed to a dead, 15-ft. red maple that he brought along for a prop and placed lengthwise along the table.
“There is a ticking time bomb out there. Landscapers and homeowners are planting trees too deep. They don’t want it to fall over so they plant it a little bit deeper.”
Lindsay applauded the fact that some nurseries are now painting white lines on the base of trees, to mark the depth at which they should be planted, but says that’s not enough.
“I shake my head when I see some of these trees and the way they are planted. My wife says it’s okay, Tim, you have no control over that.  And then some of trees, they’re the wrong species. They need organic material in the soil, they need the roots to be protected, you’ve got to mulch them and so-and-so. It is stress city for those trees and they are probably not going to make it. From a design standpoint they may look beautiful, but it’s going to be problematic in the long term.”
When trees are stressed, he said, they give off a scent that brings in pestiferous insects.
“There a number of stressors that can hit a tree and relieving that stress is our goal or the plant is going to die. Unfortunately they don’t die quick enough for people to learn a lesson,” he said.
Mark Follansbee, who attended a tree pruning class that Lindsay and Dubois held last spring at town hall, wanted to know what could be done if he suspects that a maple tree in his yard is planted too deep.
“I’m thinking I’ve got to do something. It isn’t that deep but based on what you’re saying it’s probably too deep,” said Follansbee.
Depending upon how bad it is, Lindsay told him, there are a couple of things he can do, starting with reducing the grade of the soil leading from the trunk. He warns Follansbee to avoid “volcano mulching,” or piling mulch too high against the trunk.
Lindsay went on to explain the pros and cons of using bark mulch versus wood chips, whether the wire basket surrounding the tree root ball should be snipped off, and if a tree really needs to be placed in a hole three times the size of the root ball.
The most important decision, he said, is the choice of one tree versus another.
“But it’s almost as important to make sure that you use as much of the original soil as possible,” Lindsay said.
After a few more minutes reiterating the main points he had addressed in the previous hour, Lindsay told the class that the time they had been waiting for had arrived.
“I’d love nothing better than to do this myself, but I want you to see and say: ‘If he can do it, so can I.’ But I can tell that some of you came here to help, and get dirty, so let’s go outside and get this in the ground.”
Like a green-thumbed Pied Piper, Lindsay motioned for the class to follow him to the lawn in front of the DPW building, where the 14-ft. green ash lay on its side, its tree root ball wrapped in burlap.  
“Let’s go plant a tree,” he said.