People love Chilliwack’s pink trees.
The ornamental plum trees — not cherry as some may think — blossom every spring into a riot of pink.
Unfortunately, the ornamental plum “did not prove to be a successful street tree” for this area and had to be replaced, according to head arborist for City of Chillliwack, Shelley Grigg.
The history of the distinctive trees dates back to 1985-86, where 650 ornamental plum trees were planted along streets and boulevards in Chilliwack ahead of Expo ’86.
People notice them particularly on Airport Road, Spadina Avenue and Yale Road.
But city officials learned the trees have a short lifespan and multiple defects, and that explains why there are far fewer today than in decades past.
“The branches split under snow load, the roots decay, they have vigorous water sprout growth and the crowns die back from disease. The plum is also too large to plant under utility wires and the hard pruning encouraged decay.
City officials secured a grant from BC Hydro, under the Community Regreening program which has funded the replacement trees.
“As we replaced the plums, we used a variety of species in order to ensure a diverse sustainable street tree planting. The vulnerability of an urban forest, to insect and disease, is much higher where a single species of tree dominates the landscape,” said Grigg.
“Our goal was to replace the short-lived spring show of flowers with a longer vibrant fall show.”
The replacement program supports the replacement of these trees, worst cases first, with trees appropriate for the planting sites. These trees are then put into the city inventory and put on a regular maintenance schedule.
With the computer Tree Works, the arborist has inventoried more than 10,600 trees in Chilliwack.
The remaining plum trees will be replaced in the next few years.
“We are very close to completing this replacement program,” Grigg said.
Some people confuse plum trees with cherry trees because the blossoms erupt around the same time in early spring, and the flowers look similar. But there the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival officials put out information about how to differentiate between plum and cherry trees, and the petal shapes and bark characteristics are very different.
READ MORE: History of Chilliwack’s pink street trees
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