When the houses on this street were built over 25 years ago, the builder had to contract for trees to be planted on every front lawn, in conformance to a municipal bylaw. At that time home-owners were given a list of municipally-approved trees to select from. These would be trees whose roots were not known to be particularly invasive to threaten the foundation of the homes they were planted in front of.

In the case of our house, built several years after the aggregate of the houses were long finished and occupied, in a lot set aside for an experimental model that borrowed liberally from a new open-concept vision of living that came out of California or Florida, we weren't given a choice. We came by after our offer for purchase had been accepted one day to find a white pine planted on the front lawn. Not that we minded. Truth told, though we appreciate all trees, we do favour conifers and we were pleased by some anonymous person's selection on our behalf.

Over the intervening years the trees have grown enormously. What can be more pleasant than to see an urban street of homes fronted by mature trees, beautiful to look at and offering the shelter of shade in the hot summer months, protection from wind and snow in the winter months. Nature, however, had other plans.

Some of the maples that were planted appear in the past number of years to be afflicted by some kind of life-hazardous enemy specific to maples. And the emerald ash borer, yet another invasive species, has destroyed many of the ash trees from Ontario to Quebec. One of our neighbours last year hired an aborist to inoculate their ash tree against the borer grubs, but perhaps it was too late. It was a gamble, and he lost. There are a good many ash trees growing on the street on people's lawns and most were in obvious distress as part of the tree died, with the bark peeling off and major limbs bare of foliage.

Our next door neighbour had brought in an arborist to evaluate the health of their trees and he found the pine growing on their lawn and the maple next to it were in decline. The maple's roots were reaching out to the foundation of the house. He also pronounced a death sentence on another maple in their backyard and a large mature spruce. They are all destined to be removed.

In the last two weeks crews have been busy cutting down and mulching the ash trees that have looked so pathetic for the past several years. The street looks bare without them. It's hard not to feel badly about their absence. In speaking to the crews working on removing the trees it's plain they have more business than they can handily deal with. And what happens to the shredded trees? They aren't being used as clean fill anywhere, but taken to dumps where there is a $600 charge for each load to be left.

Now that's downright amazing; a valuable resource that the mulch represents is being wasted and what's more those who must dispose of it somehow are forced to pay handsomely for its disposal. We were told that someone on an adjacent street agreed to take one of their loads, to use in her gardens. And we were more than happy to offer to take a load off their hands for use in our own gardens as much to keep weeds to a minimum and to help the garden beds and borders retain moisture after a rain so the need to water growing things is kept to a minimum as well. The additional invaluable bonus is the enrichment over time of the garden soil.