Hitting Close to Home

The relevance of TCLF’s Every Tree Tells a Story, this year’s Landslide theme, really hit home as back-to-back blizzards this past week in Washington, D.C., destroyed and disfigured trees and shrubs throughout the region. Front page Washington Post coverage catalogued types of trees downed, some locations and damage they inflicted on homes, cars and power lines. No mention was made of how these losses affect the character of a neighborhood, or the region.

The heavy snowfall caused the collapse of a century old elm a half block from my home. This tree is one of a handful of elms, in part of the Dupont Circle neighborhood, that form a cathedral-like canopy over townhouses, embassies, and other buildings. It had witnessed a century of history in the nation’s capital, and survived Dutch elm disease, but it couldn’t handle the record breaking snow. While alive, it didn’t cause much notice, but laying across the front yard of a neighboring embassy and two cars, it attracted constant interest from camera phone toting pedestrians. People posed in front of the downed elm as if it were another tourist attraction. Their overheard conversations weren’t about the loss of the tree itself, but damage inflicted on the two autos.

In the big scheme of things, the importance of this single elm is debatable, its absence, however, is notable.

Do you know a tree that has a story? Submit this for our annual Landslide watch list by March 31. Learn more