Parliament Hill’s white elm will get the axe
A white elm on Parliament Hill that predates Centre Block, and which survived Dutch elm disease, will be cut down to make way for renovations.
The federal government department Public Services and Procurement Canada made the announcement Thursday.
The Greenspace Alliance of Canada’s Capital, an environmental group, has pleaded for special consideration for the tall elm.
Jennifer Garrett, director general of the Centre Block Rehabilitation Program at PSPC, said the tree is old and very sick anyway.
“We will be digging around the building, doing foundation work,” Garrett said. This is “still in the process of scoping but we know that we are going to do that work and we are planning accordingly.
“The other component … involves the construction of the visitors’ welcome centre complex, and so there is going to be excavation. And, sadly, that tree is so close to the building and, combined with the excavation, it is going to be impacted. It’s not going to be able to stay there.
“It’s in a very deteriorated condition,” she said.
The elm was infected several decades ago by the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease, but it recovered after treatment, she said.
She said PSPC is going to plant four trees for each tree it removes, and these will be native species. There’s also a possibility that PSPC will try to grow seedlings from the existing elm, either using seeds or by grafting, to keep the original tree’s DNA alive. This, however, would leave it open to further Dutch elm disease infection; most elms planted today are recent hybrids developed to be resistant to the disease.
PSPC is working with Phil White, the Dominion sculptor, with plans to make carvings from the wood of this tree. PSPC hasn’t calculated the cost of this yet.
“We don’t really care about that (carving). We care about the live tree,” Greenspace Alliance chair Paul Johanis said.
His group says the earliest known photo of the tree was taken in 1901.
“The white elm (ulmus americana) is a prominent landmark on an otherwise denuded Parliament Hill,” it said this week in an appeal to save the tree. “It sits across a roadway just east of the Centre Block, shading a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald.
“We think it’s still a healthy specimen,” Johanis said.
An arborist hired by PSPC reported last fall that it is in poor shape, but Johanis says the tree
appears to be alive and vigorous. (It is visible in tulip season on Google Street View, a tall tree just to the right of the Centre Block.)
The tree is historic on its own, he said. As a surviving elm, it is also rare.
“More than that, it’s a mature tree. Ottawa — especially the core in Ottawa — is facing a crisis of the loss of mature trees everywhere, and a lot of it is due to renovations and infill.”
“It’s important that the government take steps not only to save this beautiful elm tree but to do what’s right and have it listed as a heritage tree,” Johanis wrote in his news release this week.
In his letter to the NCC, Johanis suggested the tree be listed as heritage tree under a Forests Ontario program. Six heritage trees already exist in Ottawa, but none of them is on federal property.