- Front yard of 768 Gladstone Ave.
- Photo: © Dougal Bichan
This large American elm (Ulmus americana) is believed to be at least 80 years old and was likely planted in this yard after the house was built in the early 1900s. Its age is noteworthy, as it means that it is a survivor of the outbreak of Dutch elm disease that swept through the city in the early 1960s, killing over 80 percent of Toronto’s 35,000 elms. Many of the elms lost were mature trees planted at the turn of the 19th century. They often lined both sides of city streets, their arching branches meeting in the middle to create a cathedral-like canopy more than 50 feet above the road below.
The disease was accidentally imported from Europe on trade ships and is inadvertently spread from tree to tree by the elm bark beetle. Once deposited under the elm’s bark by the burrowing beetle, the disease begins to spread. The tree reacts to the presence of the fungus by plugging its own phloem and xylem tubes that transport nutrients and water up and down the tree just under the bark, often starving a tree to death within a year.
Unfortunately, despite its resistance to Dutch elm disease, this tree died in the spring, likely due to the homeowner installing a new walkway and a raised stone wall around its base last summer. At the time, large roots of the tree were cut to make room for the wall. Many people don’t realize that the majority of a tree’s roots are in the top 2 feet of soil and are vital to the tree’s survival. If its roots are cut, a tree cannot absorb water from the ground and will often die as a result.
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- Return to map of: Dovercourt Park
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