Last week we got FIVE new trees in downtown Montpelier, between Main and Elm Street. This was an stretch that had been decimated in last year’s storm water construction project.

All it took was an inspiring challenge from one merchant to re-green this important section of downtown. A group of us—the city’s Tree Board, Montpelier Alive, the Montpelier Parks and Trees department, and a couple community members—got together, quickly decided we simply needed to get something planted, even if it was not the perfect solution. We’ve found in our urban environment many trees only life a dozen years or so.

The four-foot square root zone in the sidewalk is woefully inadequate and the salt used to keep winter roads safe takes a huge toll. We’ve lost several trees to cars hitting them and others failed to live for unknown reasons. This stretch of road is also scheduled to be totally torn up in about ten years to replace a bridge. That was too long to have a bare street!

We knew an investment of about $7000 would see us through until we could plant them properly. Interestingly we quickly solved the issue of how to pay for them! We had a generous donation from another merchant in memory of friend, funds from last year’s construction project, a grant from our local Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier, and money from the Tree Board budget. Then we got a great price from and fabulous planting by a local arborist, and very able administration by our City Arborist, and all of a suddent we had five new trees—two Accolade Elms (resistant to Dutch Elm Disease) and three Freeman Maples. Our devoted Tree Board watering team will take good care of them this summer, already a hot one, and we expect them to become a very rewarding presence on the street.

It is easy to ignore trees in a downtown until they are gone. They are essential! Take a look and appreciate the value of this kind of investment to our downtown. In a future post I’ll share how we are planting trees so they can grow to old age using the “Stockholm Method.”

07 Jun This entry was published on June 7, 2026 at 5:11 pm. It’s filed under John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Trees, Vermont, www.johnsnell.photography and tagged garden, gardening, Montpelier Alive, Montpelier Parks and Trees Department, Montpelier Tree Board, nature, Stockholm Method, travel, trees. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.