Rant: That park in Brookline where they topped all the oaks last fall

I was walking through Larz Anderson Park last week and noticed they topped a bunch of mature oaks near the pond. One of them had a cut right at the main trunk, maybe 18 inches across. I get that the town was worried about liability after that branch fell on a car in 2022, but isn't this just asking for weak regrowth and rot down the line? Has anyone else seen a municipal crew butcher trees like this and just had to walk away?

2 comments

2 Comments

grayc2713d ago

My friend lives near there and watched them do it from her window. She said one guy was just chainsawing through branches that still had buds on them like they were trimming a hedge. She called the town arborist and he basically shrugged and said the order came from the parks director.

patriciareed13d agoMost Upvoted

Oh come on, that arborist had to have known better than to just shrug it off. I mean, if the order came from the parks director, that's the guy he should be talking to, not just passing the buck like it's out of his hands. Cutting branches with buds on them is literally damaging the tree's ability to produce leaves and energy this season, it's basic biology. And calling the arborist in the first place was the right move, but he should have gone up the chain himself if he saw something wrong. It just makes me wonder how much of this kind of stuff happens without anyone catching it in time.