One of our fledgling street trees on Larchmont Blvd. was damaged when it was struck by a vehicle Wednesday evening. The support stakes were broken, causing the Podocarpus tree that lives in the sidewalk in front of the RiteAid Drug Store to lean over.
Concerned residents and Buzz readers Patti Carroll and Liz Gabor shared these photos, and we dispatched a local gardener to re-stake the damaged tree. Thanks to Heather Duffy Boylston, Executive Director of the Larchmont Village Business Improvement District, who authorized the expense of purchasing new stakes and materials to secure the tree, and cover the gardener’s time. And then thanks to Ronald Valencia, the tree was re-staked early this morning and looks like it’s going to be fine.
The tree was planted a few years ago, after the sidewalk was repaired, at the expense of building owner Ron Simms, and replaced a mature Ficus tree that had to be removed. Â
Hopefully this young tree will recover and continue growing, offering shade and cleaning the air. But we had to take a moment to share this story because we are dismayed that someone would hit this tree — it’s in a no parking zone! — and drive off, leaving someone else to deal with it!!
We all love Larchmont, and one of its charms is our street trees. We lost several trees in the storms this past weekend. That’s going to happen. But this could have been easily prevented. We need to take care of our street trees – they’re the lungs of our city. If you know who did this, you have our permission to shame them!
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