(La Porte, IN) - A lot of dead and dying trees beside streets in La Porte will be vanishing this year.  The city plans to cut them down.

 

City Arborist Sarah Nimetz said the mostly Maple trees are not sick, but being removed because they were all planted decades ago and are reachiing their lifespan.  "About 60 years ago the city planted a lot of trees all at once .  Most of them are maples which grow really fast and are good street trees because they grow really fast.  But, that also means they're all going to die at the same time so that group of trees that were planted are just aging all out at the same time,” she said.

 

Nimetz said trees of different varieties will be planted to replace the trees in the tree lawns.  However, she said there will be enough Maples planted with the other species to maintain the city’s reputation as the Maple City.

 

A study shows a majority of trees in the tree lawns are not in the greatest shape.  The upcoming planting of trees of various life spans is designed to keep the city from having the same problem decades from now.  "We know now.  We know better.  We know we need species diversity and age diversity so we want to spread that out over time so that this doesn't happen again and that's what we're going try to do now that we have this management plan in place,” Nimetz said.

 

The study shows there are about 6,000 trees in city owned tree lawns and about 400 of those trees need to come down in the near future.  Nimetz said the aging trees are pretty much spread over the entire city but concentrated more in the downtown area.