Washington Park Vegetation Renewal & Management Report

The conditional information is of importance to the determination of tree and shrub maintenance needs and to gauging the overall health of the vegetation in these areas of the park. Overall there are 246 trees in these two areas, with 152 in the King Fountain and 95 in the Croquet Lawn. By reviewing this plan for tree condition information on the trees reveals the following:

This chart shows that; there are very few trees in excellent condition, requiring no remedial care,

6 in all; the trees in good condition account for over 50% of the total, 139 in all; and that fully

41% are in fair to poor condition indicating a need for substantial remedial care or removal for

these 102 trees.

The large size trees are of special interest as the older shade trees in the park. Trees in the three largest size categories were counted. There are 42 trees in these three sizes and they are grouped as follows:

Croquet Lawn;

and 6 in the Croquet Lawn;

area.

Altogether there are 64 historic trees, but they are not all of a large size. For example, the older tree lilacs were judged as historic, but are relatively small caliper sizes although they are large for flowering trees. In another case, the Austrian Pines appear in period views as young trees and are still extant but are not of large caliper size. Generally deciduous shade trees grow to a larger girth over the years and would be counted among the trees in the above groupings. The condition of historic trees was also noted:

LANDSCAPES, Landscape Architecture, Planning, Historic Preservation, Westport, CT 25