Recent Changes to Quad’s Landscape

Reported by: Natascha Lambing

Photographed by: Danny Walker

NEWBERG, Ore. – On the George Fox University (GFU) The semester began with the removal of the elms outside of Edwards-Holman Science Center (EHS) which had contracted Dutch Elm Disease.

Dutch Elm Disease is “highly contagious” and causes them to go “fairly quickly which is typical of that disease,” according to Plant Services’ superintendent of building repair and campus arborist Carl Anderson. “It’s contagious enough that it’s good practice to remove them as quick as you can.”

The removal of the trees did not happen without careful consideration. Anderson noted that a primary reason for tree removal depends on hazard assessment. Did the tree die? What are the targets? Occupancy of targets? From there, Anderson and GFU’s Plant Services work internally or with contractors, depending on the scope of the work, to secure a safe and functional space.

Part of the contract for the removal of these elms included the promise of two new elms to replace them, which would be resistant to the disease. “October, November [is a] good time to plant them” Anderson said, noting that Plant Services has yet to decide on a location. “Part of a campus management plan is you have to be looking twenty, fifty, a hundred years [into the future]; what’s the campus going to look like?” Anderson said.

More recently, due to a severe windstorm on Sept. 7 which prompted red flag warnings from Portland’s National Weather Service, an oak by Minthorn Hall cracked and landed in the Quad. After removing part of the same oak outside Minthorn Hall a couple of years earlier, Anderson said that it had “become structurally unstable so [we] needed to remove the whole tree.” Although not a dormitory and with lower occupancy rate, Minthorn Hall resides on the National Register of Historic Places, necessitating its protection from tree damage.

The same windstorm damaged the red maple tree just west of Pennington Hall. Anderson said he believed the tree was planted when the dorm was constructed, and in subsequent years endured many attempts to mitigate its deteriorating structure. This recent storm caused the preexisting crack in the tree to split all the way down to the root.

“Even going back as far as the mid-80s” there have been attempts in “trying to keep the two halves together . . . a few bolts in there . . . tried to cable the tree together . . .” Anderson said, “just this spring [we] had a company come out and put a cable halfway up the tree.” However, the cable broke. With Pennington Hall’s windows within reach of any stray branches, the tree had to be removed.

Even trees like the atlas cedars in the center of the Quad, that don’t mind the year-round saturation of the ground due to the lawn watering patterns, were subject to the forces of the wind. Following the early September wind, broken branches had to be removed from their upper sections, demonstrating the importance of continued maintenance of even the healthiest trees.