The city Park and Recreation Department is working to remove dead and diseased trees and plant new ones in city parks and the boulevard district. 

The recently removed 23 trees in Gibson Park for a contract price of $12,500, according to Todd Seymanski, city forester.

Another 10 trees were marked for removal last fall and Seymanski said they’d be removed through the winter and in late winter, crews will remove the stumps.

He’s hoping to replace the 23 removed trees with 25 new ones, but it will depend on funding availability.

He said that replacing will be done through donations that pass through the People’s Park and Recreation Foundation and their Gibson Root Revival campaign.

City working to remove, replace dead trees in parks, boulevard district

Seymanski said through that fund, people will be able to sponsor trees, but Park and Rec won’t be using plaques anymore since they’ve had trouble vandalism.

Newly planted trees will be deer fenced, so they’ll look a little different, until they’re more established, he said.

Earlier this year, the city applied for a Montana Department of Resources and Conservation grant to help with the tree removal in Gibson Park, but were unsuccessful.

Vandals targeting trees in city parks [2023]

The mature trees die for a number of reasons, Seymanski said, such as age, freezes and other environmental factors. A few trees had Dutch elm disease, he said.

They’ll be replaced with bur oaks, hackberries, honey locusts and maples to increase diversity of the city’s urban forest, he said.

Other trees marked for removal in the boulevard district and other city parks will be removed through the winter. Replanting in the boulevard district will follow the typical schedule and Seymanski works to consider requests for new trees. 

Replanting in other city parks is also donation dependent.

City continuing wind storm cleanup

About 99 percent of the dead trees are ash with some elm trees, Seymanski told The Electric earlier this year.

The combination of age and weather conditions with early and late freezes in recent years has been damaging to the trees, as well as ash bark beetles and Dutch Elm disease, he said.

In February, Seymanski said he’d awarded three contracts totaling $29,830 for tree removal in the boulevard district through the short works roster.

Replacing those trees has been an ongoing process for several years that’s generally contracted out, he said, and replacement trees run about $550 per tree.

City sets tax levies, assessments

The city hasn’t planted green ash in years since there are so many in the public areas and since they’ve been impacted by disease.

Trees can be replanted in the same spot as removed trees, but Seymanski said it’s best to wait a few years since they only ground down about 14 to 15 inches and wait for nature to take its course and the rest of the root system to rot and return to the soil.

During the Oct. 4 wind storm, the city lost 19 trees in the boulevard district and not one of them had been marked for removal, Seymanski said. The wind also took out a few in city parks. 

City forestry completes 7-year project of hazard tree trimming [2017]

Seymanski said that since marked trees were 50 percent dead or more, they didn’t have many leaves so the wind whistled right though, whereas more robust trees caught the wind and its damage.

Tree maintenance, removal and replacement in city parks is funded through the general funds, so resources are limited, Seymanski said.

The trees in the boulevard are funded through the boulevard district assessment, which is a special fee to property owners within the district.

The assessment covers the care and maintenance of more than 15,000 street trees, including pruning, removal, planting and streetscape design.

The city assesses property owners within that district to cover the cost of those services performed by the Natural Resources Division of Great Falls Park and Recreation.