Metcalfe Boulevard loses another

I had previously blogged about the "surivivor" trees on Metcalfe which managed to grow despite being in a narrow strip of ground between a sidewalk and a four-lane roadway, both of which are drowned in salt in the wintertime. Unfortunately, due to the Emerald Ash Borer infestation, the ash trees among this group have succumbed. Here's the stump of one tree which had made it to a decent trunk size:

Here's that tree a month ago before they cut it down (barely). It had grown to four or five storeys tall, surviving thousands and thousands of cars passing by, but in the end it was done in by a little beetle. The Elphin apartments on Gladstone and the Museum of Nature are in the background.

Here's another shot of the same tree, in winter after a snowstorm this past February. If it weren't still summer, I'd have used this photo at the start of the blog post but I wouldn't want to startle you!

The City will likely plant a new tree, one of the little "Charlie Brown Christmas" trees like the ones planted further up Metcalfe. I hear the tree-planting crews are already fully booked for the fall plantings, so a replacement probably won't be planted until Spring. Assuming it survives, the new tree of course won't be as big as the one that died for decades. Due to the EAB, this story will be repeated many times across Ottawa.