NORWAY – A group trying to return a leafy canopy to Main Street has applied for state money to pay for a row of downtown trees, and they hope to start by planting two trees during Arbor Week.
“Two trees that are very dead are in front of Key Bank and the one in front of Fare Share,” said Gail Geraghty, who is on the tree committee. “It makes sense to celebrate Arbor Week by euthanizing the dead trees and planting new ones as a symbol of hope and new life.”
The committee is applying for $2,030, which will cover the cost of eight trees and their maintenance. They will hear by early May from Project Canopy, which is a Maine Forest Service program designed to promote urban forestry. Arbor Week is from May 15 to 19.
Jan Ames Santerre of Project Canopy said Norway will likely receive the funding because this year Maine municipalities have asked for less than the $100,000 available.
“It’s good news for all the applicants,” Santerre said Monday. “It has been shown that businesses are more frequently visited and make more money in downtowns that are nicely landscaped.”
And also trees reduce pollution and storm water runoff, she said.
One of the trees the Norway tree committee hopes to buy is a liberty elm, which is resistant to Dutch elm disease, a fungus that wiped out elms across the country starting in the 1920s. Because they are expensive, the committee is only requesting one.
Geraghty said there was a time in Norway when regal elms shaded the downtown and swayed in the breeze. Some folks still remember them.
“According to (Norway selectman) Bobby Walker, there used to be elms hanging over Main Street and it was gorgeous,” Geraghty said.
The tree committee was formed after folks started to get fed up with the state of the trees on Main Street, some of which are either dying or growing too big and ripping up sewer pipes and blocking store fronts.
The town also has $14,000 in community development block grants, but that money can only be used for the south side of the street, which is shaded and has few trees, Geraghty said. That federal money is restricted to the town’s slum and blight district.
The other trees the committee will purchase are a Zelkova serrata, a honey locust, two hawthorns and a flowering crab.
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