I used to live on the current site of the Hanlon Creek Business Park off of Downey Rd. and it was a farm at one time but we still called it “The Farm” when I lived there. Surrounding the yard around the house was a square perimeter of spruce trees and behind the house was a grand old Burr Oak tree estimated at 200 yrs, I thought that this area would be included in the design as a small park. This is not the case and I discovered that the oak tree has been cut down and it makes me very angry that they did not protect it. I don’t know why this decision was made but an initial call to the city was ignored. The only thing I can think of, to do something positive for such a negative action, is to collect any acorns or seedlings around the area where the tree once stood, provided they haven’t leveled the whole area.
The problem is that it is illegal for anyone to set foot on the property due to the court injunction imposed after the protests, I’m wondering if anyone may be interested in collecting and if anyone may be able to get permission from the city to do so especially GUFF with a such a noble profile in Guelph. I welcome any feedback.
Hello John. GUFF is looking into gathering any existing seed stock from this tree. We are applying for approval and will look for seedlings on site. You are right that it is important to keep the hereditary line of these old great trees going and we thank you for alerting us to this one. We too are sorry that these mature trees are removed “for progress”.
Thank you GUFF for responding to my proposal and I wish I had entered this particular tree in your Old Growth Urban Tree Contest last year and perhaps we could have saved it. I hope permission is granted by the city to collect seedlings of the old burr oak, unless of course the rest of the trees have been cut down and the area has been graded over (I haven’t been out there since I first noticed the great oak’s demise several weeks ago).
The forest that is part of these Hanlon Creek Business Park (HCBP) lands, and is to be protected in the plan (although many feel the buffer zones are too close to the forest), has many different species of trees that are very fine specimans of old growth trees. I don’t know what plans are in the works, if any, to widen the deer paths to have people walking through there when the HCBP is in full development but I can only think that they will and the forest will suffer because of it. I make a further proposal to GUFF that we concerned citizens be allowed to also to take an inventory and photograph the existing specimans in this forest to understand the rich diversity within this relativly small area of wooded land.
I thank you for your time and would be very interested to be there helping out.
Sincerely,
John Aldham
May 6, 2011 at 11:07 am
I used to live on the current site of the Hanlon Creek Business Park off of Downey Rd. and it was a farm at one time but we still called it “The Farm” when I lived there. Surrounding the yard around the house was a square perimeter of spruce trees and behind the house was a grand old Burr Oak tree estimated at 200 yrs, I thought that this area would be included in the design as a small park. This is not the case and I discovered that the oak tree has been cut down and it makes me very angry that they did not protect it. I don’t know why this decision was made but an initial call to the city was ignored. The only thing I can think of, to do something positive for such a negative action, is to collect any acorns or seedlings around the area where the tree once stood, provided they haven’t leveled the whole area.
The problem is that it is illegal for anyone to set foot on the property due to the court injunction imposed after the protests, I’m wondering if anyone may be interested in collecting and if anyone may be able to get permission from the city to do so especially GUFF with a such a noble profile in Guelph. I welcome any feedback.
Thank you
John Aldham
May 31, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Hello John. GUFF is looking into gathering any existing seed stock from this tree. We are applying for approval and will look for seedlings on site. You are right that it is important to keep the hereditary line of these old great trees going and we thank you for alerting us to this one. We too are sorry that these mature trees are removed “for progress”.
June 2, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Thank you GUFF for responding to my proposal and I wish I had entered this particular tree in your Old Growth Urban Tree Contest last year and perhaps we could have saved it. I hope permission is granted by the city to collect seedlings of the old burr oak, unless of course the rest of the trees have been cut down and the area has been graded over (I haven’t been out there since I first noticed the great oak’s demise several weeks ago).
The forest that is part of these Hanlon Creek Business Park (HCBP) lands, and is to be protected in the plan (although many feel the buffer zones are too close to the forest), has many different species of trees that are very fine specimans of old growth trees. I don’t know what plans are in the works, if any, to widen the deer paths to have people walking through there when the HCBP is in full development but I can only think that they will and the forest will suffer because of it. I make a further proposal to GUFF that we concerned citizens be allowed to also to take an inventory and photograph the existing specimans in this forest to understand the rich diversity within this relativly small area of wooded land.
I thank you for your time and would be very interested to be there helping out.
Sincerely,
John Aldham