Street Tree Removal

Arboriculture staff remove an average of 1,400 dead or diseased street trees annually.

Removal for Reasons of Safety

The Park Board considers public safety to be the first order of business with tree care. If we cannot ensure safety by arboricultural methods, the tree must be removed. Sometimes a tree is in such a state of decline that measures to ensure safety would also serve to hasten that decline. Removal becomes the only option. Seldom does a tree die standing on Vancouver's streets, vigilant crews continuously inspect trees to identify and remove the dying ones. About 1% of the street tree inventory is removed and replaced every year.

Diseased Tree Removal

Within a tree population, certain trees are more susceptible to disease infections than others. At times, when individual trees have become infected with a serious tree disease, it may be removed to protect the other trees on the block. There are a handful of tree species planted years ago that have never done well. Typically, our wet coastal climate has contributed to certain diseases on trees that had not been a problem in other North American cities. These trees are not dangerous in any way but they can be very unsightly throughout much of the growing season when the infection strikes.

Tree species where perennial disease problems are considered serious include:

• Blireana plum
• English hawthorn
• Modesto ash
• some of the old cultivars of Flowering crabapple

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