All tagged Trees
We would like to express our opposition to PECO’s plans to place high voltage lines along a number of streets in Swarthmore.
This is a thank you note, or maybe more accurately a love letter, to all the folks in Swarthmore who care for the trees—folks who plant and trim, and notice where we need more; those who select trees for perfect loveliness, and trees so tall they arch over the street; and those who safely take them away when their work is done.
Like many of our neighbors, we are shocked and deeply concerned about the extreme removal of trees, as well as our health and the financial hazards that will be caused by PECO’s high voltage lines set to go through our yards and residential streets this month.
Swarthmore’s Favorite Tree candidates failed to include the weeping fernleaf beech on Harvard Avenue at the entrance to Morgan Circle. This is one of two remaining such specimens from the four once locally extant. (The other is on Columbia Avenue near Cresson.)
Now is the time for homeowners to protect their trees from the invasive spotted lanternfly (SLF). From egg cases that were dormant over the winter, distinctive nymphs are emerging — small, black, with a random pattern of white spots covering their bodies. In a later stage, the nymphs become mostly red and black. Nymphs cannot fly, they crawl (and they can jump!), and will travel up and down the trunks of the trees. They feed by sucking out the sap of the tree, weakening it, and over time potentially killing it.
I had always thought that Swarthmore was a town that loved trees — until recently, that is, when my husband and I received notice of a code violation.
