Gardeners, leaders celebrate resurgence of elm

By Robert Guttersohn | October 29, 2011 at 12:05a.m.

Liberty

Amid a dense fog that fell on the Valley on Friday morning, the Men’s Garden Club of Youngstown planted the first of four American Elm trees in the township’s Churchill Cemetery.

The American elm, which almost went extinct, has a close tie to the country’s history.

“Almost every city has a street named elm,” said club President Dan Burns.

Settlers brought the trees from Europe, he said. And as American colonizing spread west across the continent, settlers brought the trees with them as reminders of home. Soon after, the tree could be spotted anywhere from New England to Florida and as far west as the Dakotas.

And the elm is closely tied to Burns’ past, too.

Growing up in Austintown on Wickliffe Circle, he remembered playing sports under the shade of Elms that used to line the street.

But in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Dutch elm disease — a fungus from the Netherlands carried over by beetles — began to wipe out the American elm.

He said cities across the state had to remove the decaying trees from their sidewalks.

But recently, horticulturists found five types of elms resilient to the disease.

So the members of garden club have worked on reinstituting the elm into the Mahoning Valley’s parks, cities and cemeteries.

“Working with Mill Creek Park, we planted 15 trees at the sod farm reserve,” said club member Larry Tooker. “Through cross-pollination, we are hoping they spread and cover the entire 300 acres there.”

But the hopeful spread of the tree at sod farm is bittersweet, because their spread will replace the preserve’s now-dying ash tree, which like the American elm, is falling victim to disease, Tooker said.

By 10 a.m., the young elm, still thin and reaching no more than 10 feet tall, stood securely in the parcel of land dedicated to memorializing Liberty’s dead. There, Burns and Tooker said, it will continue to grow about 3 feet every year, continually reaching up and over the tombstones.

There it will act as a reminder of the American elm’s resurgence.