THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702090066
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, staff writer
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 83 lines
Finally, newly renovated Atlantic Avenue will be landscaped with trees that can live up, literally, to the street's new look.
After a year of experimentation, city arborist Roger Huff said he has found tree species that won't defoliate and die when assaulted by strong winds and salt spray off the ocean. Goldenraintrees and seedless gumballs are the hardiest candidates, with king's choice elms a little less hardy.
Huff's research appears to be the first of its kind and could be used by other coastal communities around the country to save beautification efforts and taxpayers' money.
The first trees used in the resort's redevelopment efforts, like London plane trees, were not good transplants to Virginia Beach, Huff said. They would lose their leaves several times a season after storms carried salt spray off the ocean. Eventually they would die.
``We were having outrageous replacement costs,'' he said.
Among all varieties, an average of 100 trees a year were being replaced at the Oceanfront at $75 to $120 a tree.
The London plane trees were thought to be salt tolerant, and in a manner of speaking they were, Huff said. The trees had been found to withstand rock salt, which is spread on streets in snow and ice storms. It didn't harm the trees' roots.
Huff soon learned that no research was available on trees that could survive wind-blown salt.
So Huff and Bonnie Appleton, a horticulturist with Virginia Tech's Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center on Diamond Springs Road, decided to perform their own research.
Last year, they received a state Department of Forestry grant for $8,377.24, which included matching funds from the city's Landscape Services Division. Huff and Appleton then set out to find and plant trees that might do well in an oceanfront setting.
Their research might help clear the way for other seaside cities around the nation. Huff and Appleton will present their findings at a meeting of the International Society of Arboriculture in August in Salt Lake City. Then their research will be published in the Journal of Arboriculture.
The two began their project by searching the literature and nurseries for trees with features that would make them less likely to defoliate in the face of strong winds and salt spray, along with features such as leaf thickness and branch structure. Native trees that seemed to be logical choices did not fit the bill.
For example, a native holly might be able to live along Atlantic Avenue and be aesthetically pleasing but bare-foot tourists would not appreciate the holly's prickly leaves.
Resort planners ask a lot more of an oceanfront street tree than just to be easy on the eyes and feet. It must:
Grow tall enough not to interfere with pedestrian and vehicular traffic and be compact enough not to spread into hotels and other buildings.
Withstand harsh winds that sometimes are formed in a wind tunnel effect down a row of hotels or a side street.
Tolerate temperature extremes from wind chill in winter to reflected heat from pavement in summer.
Be hardy enough to live with automobile exhaust and pedestrian abuse.
The goldenraintrees, from China, with their beautiful spiky yellow blooms in June, and the Virginia native seedless gum trees, a sterile variety of sweet gum that produces no gum ball, have thus far lived up to all those demands, Huff said.
``There was no defoliation the entire summer,'' he said, ``until the hurricane that brushed us in the fall. Then trees even six blocks inland defoliated, too.''
King's choice elms, also of Chinese origin, were found to do well as long as they didn't have to take the full brunt of the wind, Huff added. Loquats, the fourth species tested last year, were not successful.
As a result of the experiment, the city is overhauling the Atlantic Avenue landscaping. Huff is searching for a source of large, healthy goldenraintrees and hopes to plant 320 of them as well as 110 seedless gums early this year. King's choice elms are being planted between 18th and 19th streets.
Other trees, including golden flames, relatives of the goldenraintree, also will be tested this summer.
``In the end,'' Huff said, ``we want to come up with four to five species that are salt tolerant.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Richard L. Dunston/The Virginian-Pilot
Virginia Beach workers, from left, Dan Knight, David Owens, and Greg
D'Amico plant a king's choice elm on Atlantic Avenue near 18th
Street.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH OCEANFRONT TREE