In their effort to maintain trees within the parks and throughout the city, Minot's forestry department works hard in tending to the greenery. They are typically out and about every day, taking care of trees in the city and making Minot a more beautiful and green place.
The forestry department is responsible for all of the parks' trees and all of the trees on boulevards. As of now, they are responsible for about 8,500 trees plus some small parks not accounted for yet and the trees are valued at approximately $5.8 million.
The forestry department takes care of an assortment of trees, too. According to city forester Brian Johnson, they take care of elms, maples, ash, oak and hackberry. He said they probably have 20 to 30 varieties of trees to tend to. The trees that are the most prevalent in the parks, though, are the oaks in Oak Park and ash trees in Roosevelt Park.
When the trees are watered is mostly dependent on Mother Nature. The forestry department waters the trees in the parks once a week if the ground is dry and once every two weeks if the ground is more wet. However, the boulevard trees are the responsibility of the homeowners, although the forestry department will do the first watering.
The forestry department also provides services such as tree planting, tree pruning, tree and stump removal, homeowner consultations, planting advice, and Dutch Elm disease inspection.
This year's unseasonably warm winter weather has not affected the trees at all. In fact, Johnson said, it's been good for the trees.
"The unseasonably warm fall helped us start planting early and we were able to get back to work in flooded areas," he said. The water from the flood did the most damage to the small trees, many of which didn't survive.
With the big trees, it's an ongoing investigation. Johnson explained that roots hold a tree upright and bring water to the tree, while fine roots deliver nutrients. There have also been signs of distress, like smaller leaves. He also added, "The trees will have to be monitored for the next 10 to 20 years because it's hard to tell what happened underground."
Aside from small trees that have died, there have not been any other kinds of problems due to the flood, the exception being with evergreens. Johnson said that evergreens don't like to get their feet wet and Oak Park and Roosevelt Park took a pretty hard hit from all the water that inundated the areas. Right now it's hard to tell how the trees are doing post-flood. Johnson said that the deciduous trees have dropped their leaves and the damage won't be detected or known until spring or years later.
In total, the number of trees and shrubs lost in the flood sits at 2,000 to 2,500. The most resilient trees have been the green ash and some of the maple varieties. The elm trees also did okay as well as the river bottom trees.
The biggest challenge in flood recovery has been seeing the sheer volume of damage created. Johnson said that they take it day by day and just do as much as they can.
The forestry department has already started replanting trees in Oak Park and will definitely replant as many trees as they can according to their budget. As of yet, they haven't had to make any changes in their replanting and don't see any major changes coming along in the near future. However, they also have to see what the city and the park district will do, so the future is wide open. They'll have to just go with their plan, said Johnson, and do what they can to make Minot beautiful again.
In order to get the trees back in shape, the forestry department does not want to fertilize, or remove any tree limbs unless they are clearly broken or dead. Their plan is to just use mulch and water.
There are also some pressing financial concerns about the trees, although Johnson said there's no answer for what and where. The question lies in what direction and what scale, but they have to wait and see what the city and park district will want to do. But there are also the unknowns. Johnson said it will take the trees in the flood zone quite a few years to recover, and new diseases and fungi might show up and need to be monitored.
