Our Club’s commitment to the street trees of the Back Bay continues this year with renewed emphasis on planting and pruning. In 2010, ten new street trees were planted in sidewalk tree pits throughout the Back Bay, with an emphasis on Berkeley Street, and have been watered and tended by members of the Club and by neighbors who were contacted and agreed to provide supplemental watering for at least two years following planting. Additionally, we will again hire a licensed arborist to prune branches for increased vigor and aesthetic appeal. This project, which has been ongoing for the past ten years, is done during municipal street cleaning mornings when cars are absent from the curbs. Pruning services are offered to abutting homeowners, at a reasonable charge, so their front yard trees can be improved while the staff and equipment are on site.
The following grants were awarded at the 2010 Annual Meeting:
1. Blossom Fund, $500 to continue Boston Committee’s multi-year Rose Kennedy Greenway project. When $50,000 is collected one large project will be supported.
2. Friends of the Public Garden, $4,000 to continue the inoculation of elm trees against Dutch Elm Disease. The trees are located on Commonwealth Avenue and continuing to Charlesgate East.
3. Charles River Cleanup Boat, $2,000 to continue helping this privately funded, nonprofit organization that improves water quality and the appearance of the Charles River.
4. Emerald Necklace Conservancy, $2,500 for continued work on a 3 acre woodland park in Olmsted Park. Invasive species have been removed, soil amended and tree seedlings will be planted with understory plants this year. They are developing a meadow, possibly the only one in Boston. The cost of these two phases is about $2,500.
5. Commonwealth Avenue Mall Committee, $2,500 for fertilizing trees on two blocks of the Mall. The fertilizing will be between Arlington and Berkeley Street.
6. Esplanade Association, $2,500 for the reconfiguration of the tree inventory data into a system that is accessible and workable by the lay person. Any remaining money will be used to prune the giant willows. NOTE: A violent storm on June 6 uprooted many of the giant willows, and a number of other specimen trees. The Garden Club of the Back Bay stepped forward and donated an additional $2,500 to the Emergency Tree Fund to replace these trees, making our total donation for fiscal year 2009/2010 $5,000.
7. City Roots/Urban Ecology Institute, $2,500. UEI’s City Roots program is an innovative, community-driven approach to ecological restoration that provides residents of Greater Boston’s under served neighborhoods the opportunity to come together, create a plan and take action through hands-on community planting projects. City Roots awards grants to neighborhood groups for specific projects and helps them with the design and plantings. Our money will go into a project fund to be split among four Boston projects.
8. Boston Nature Center/Mass Audubon, $2,000 to support six full scholarships for summer camp. Children attending the camp range in age from 5 to 14 and are from the local neighborhoods of Mattapan, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain.
9. Community Outreach Group (COG) $1500. COG is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide quality landscape design services to community-based groups. Clients have included public and private schools, neighborhood parks, Friends groups, churches, municipal agencies, historic sites and community gardens. Our grant will be used in a COG Boston project.
The following grants were awarded at the 2009 Annual Meeting:
1. Friends of the Public Garden, $4,000 for the inoculation of elm trees located on the streets between Massachusetts Avenue and Charlesgate East, to prevent the spread of Dutch elm disease.
2. Emerald Necklace Conservancy, $2,500, to be divided between the woodlands reforestation project and replanting slope near Mother’s Rest, on the corner of Boylston Street and The Fenway.
3. Commonwealth Avenue Mall Committee, $2,500 for fertilizing trees on two blocks of the Mall.
4. Esplanade Association, $2,500 for tree pruning.
5. Charles River Clean Up Boat, $2,000.
6. $500 to the Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America, for its Blossom Fund, in furtherance of the Committee’s multi year Rose Kennedy Greenway project.
7. $1,500 to Boston Nature Center/Massachusetts Audubon Society, to support six full scholarships for the summer camp. Children attending the camp range in age from 5 to 14 and are from the local neighborhoods of Mattapan, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain.
8. $2,500 to City Roots/Urban Ecology Institute. City Roots is awarding eight grants to community groups this year from a pool of 33 applicants. There are two forester/coordinators working with each group over a four month period to help implement the projects. Our grant will go into the project fund and will be split among the groups for planting materials and tools.
Again this year we will assist the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay at the Clarendon Street Playground, will plant the window boxes at The Womens’ Lunch Place, and will create a program for the residents of Hale House, an assisted living residential facility on Berkeley Street. Our membership in The Boston Committee of the GCA has enabled that group to provide further financial assistance to public projects in and around the Emerald Necklace. Our annual wreath making project allows us to earn money to advance our public projects while contributing gift certificates for wreaths to local charities, which they in turn auction or raffle at their fund raising events. An annual contribution is made to The College Club Scholarship Fund.
As a Club, we belong to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Arnold Arboretum, Tower Hill Botanic Gardens, The Friends of the Public Garden, The Friends of Copley Square, The New England Wildflower Society, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, The College Club, Boston Natural Area Resources, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Boston Greenspace Alliance, the Esplanade Association, and the Charles River Conservancy. Individual Club members will exhibit at The New England Spring Flower Show, and our Club plans to create an arrangement once again for Art in Bloom at The Museum of Fine Arts.
