Six Princeton American elms are scheduled to be planted as part of a larger effort that will add 24 young trees overall.
Keene is preparing to bring back a tree that once defined its downtown. Under the $28 million Central Square infrastructure project, six Princeton American elms are scheduled to be planted as part of a larger effort that will add 24 young trees overall.
The new trees will go into the ground next spring, according to Public Works Director Don Lussier. He said the city’s plantings will begin with trees about 3 inches in trunk diameter, meaning they will be much smaller than the mature elms that once shaded the square.
The return of the elm is especially symbolic in Keene, where nearly all of the original downtown elms were lost in the 1960s to Dutch elm disease, a fungus spread by beetles. Those trees had been a familiar feature of Central Square since 1844. After the disease weakened the last surviving specimens, the City Council voted in 1967 to remove them.
The construction work in Central Square officially got underway this week and will require the removal of 18 trees of different types from the square and nearby areas. Among the replacement species, the Princeton American elm was chosen because it resists Dutch elm disease. According to the Morton Arboretum in Illinois, the mature version can reach 50-70 feet in height and spread 30-50 feet wide.
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