The Main Street contractor earlier this week began installing street trees that will line both sides of 236th Street Southwest between Interstate 5 and 56th Avenue West. NextMLT reports. The trees are being planted in tree pits that are covered by a metal grate. Ultimately, 20 trees will be installed on the project.
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Metal tree grate -
The type of tree is called the Autumn Blaze Maple, which is a hybrid of the silver maple and the red maple. The Autumn Blaze Maple is a fast-growing species with leaves that turn a raspberry-red color during the fall. The Autumn Blaze Maple does not produce the “helicopter” seed pods that many other maple trees produce.
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An example of Autumn Blaze Maple trees in the fall -
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In addition to the 20 street trees, the project will install over 1,200 more plants, a combination of shrubs, groundcover and perennials. Shrub species include blue mist dwarf fothergilla, birchleaf spirea, white azalea, blush pink heavenly bamboo, purple gem dwarf rhododendron, concorde Japanese barberry, magic carpet spirea and Himalayan blueberry. Groundcovers include archer’s gold lemon thyme and waterperry blue speedwell. Perennials are purple de oro daylily. The majority of these plants will be located in ground-level planting areas.At key locations there will also be concrete planters that will have some Town Center neighborhood branding features.
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This sounds wonderful! My question is who is responsible for watering, pruning, and maintaining the plants? In many city sponsored projects it seems once planted many of these trees and plants perish from benign neglect.