NORWICH – Norwich has many beautiful tree lined streets, with maples, oaks, elms, crabapples and ashes towering over our streets and sidewalks. In an effort to add to our current urban forest, the City of Norwich Street Tree Committee has secured a grant, from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Community Urban Forestry Grant Program, to plant 30-40 more trees City tree lawns over the next year.
Why might you want to plant a tree at your home?
Many studies have shown that trees in cities and villages and around homes have many benefits including:
• Providing shade and reducing energy bills
• Decreasing local air temperatures
• Filtering out pollutants in air and water
• Increasing the value of homes and businesses
• Aesthetics, turning streets into pretty and pleasant places to be
• Reducing blood pressure and improving overall psychological health
• Reducing crime
• Increasing academics in youth
• Creating urban wildlife habitat
• Providing a connection to nature

What trees will the Street Tree Committee be planting?
When planting in community areas we always strive for a diversity of trees, some large and some small. This allows for the community forest to be more resilient to insect and disease problems. Many of you may remember that the streets of Norwich were once lined with American Elms that have long since perished due to the imported fungus Dutch elm disease and the insect that carries it, the European elm bark beetle. Unfortunately elms continue to be lost all over the country, but we learned a lesson to plant many different types of trees on our streets.
We will not be planting any trees that are considered to be invasive, or overly messy trees. Some of the species planted will be native to our area, but we will mostly be planting cultivated varieties and non-New York native species, as they can out perform many of our northeast native trees and stand up to the salt, drought and compaction that street trees endure.
Small trees, such as serviceberry and Japanese tree lilac, will be planted under three-phase power lines and in smaller tree lawns, and large trees such as oak, hackberry and London Plain tree will be planted in large tree lawns with no wires. Homeowners whose tree lawns are selected will be able to choose from a list of 4-5 trees for their site.
We will also be able to plant a few Dutch elm disease resistant Liberty elms. Unlike the resistant elms that hybrids between American and Asian elms, Liberty elms are one of six naturally resistant strains of the true American elm, and have the classic elm shape. (Note, disease resistance does not mean the plant is immune to the disease, it just has a much lower probability of infection.) These elms were donated to the City a few years ago and can be placed in very large tree lawns with no overhead wires.
How to get a tree. The NYSDEC grant targets a few streets in Norwich that are especially tree deprived: Guernsey, West Main, Henry, Gold, Plymouth, Park, Birdsall, Burr, Division. Hickock, Eaton, Hillview and Rexford. If you do not live on one of these streets, you can still submit your home and we will put you into a lottery. We also hope to continue planting trees in future years and will keep your address on file for the next round. To qualify you must:
• Have approval from the home’s owner, if that is not yourself
• Not already have a tree planted in the tree lawn in front of it
• Have a tree lawn of adequate size, minimum 4 feet wide by 4 feet long
• Have a tree lawn that is more than 15 feet away from an intersection and 10 feet from hydrants, light poles, signs etc.
• Agree to help provide care to your new tree (a new tree owners brochure will come with your tree and there will be a training session this fall)
Official tree planting request forms are available at City Hall. Please fill out one per home and return it by Aug. 31. Selected homes will be notified by Sept. 30.
The trees will be planted by volunteers and we encourage selected homeowners and all community members to assist! Planting dates will be announced later this summer. If you would like to be part of the Norwich Street Committee, join us for our next meeting on Sept. 10 at 7:30 a.m. at the Cornell Cooperative Extension office 99 N. Broad St. in Norwich.