Point Pleasant Park Forest, June 2008 (HRM)

The process

Immediately after the hurricane, it was necessary to remove enough fallen trees to allow safe access and enable management of the park to take place.

In a natural forest, fallen trees and standing dead trees would have remained untouched and restoration would have been very slow. A small area just south of Cambridge Battery has been left as an experiment to demonstrate how nature would have handled the situation.

In the rest of the park, the woody debris was cut and laid on the ground to rot and slowly provide nutrients for the new vegetation in the park. But it was not dumped in random fashion, it was laid so that it will retain moisture to encourage new growth and to keep the park moist during dry spells.

Much of the smaller woody debris from the hurricane has already rotted and disappeared. Every time we get high winds, more trees fall and these too are dismantled and laid carefully on the ground. Each time pruning and thinning of trees takes place, the debris is left on the ground to rot. Like the original clearing of downed trees, this pruning and thinning would not take place in a natural forest, but is being undertaken to speed up the process of producing a healthy and aesthetically pleasing mix of trees.

Some areas of the park began to regenerate strongly soon after the hurricane, but in other areas, particularly on south facing slopes which dry out quickly, regeneration was slow and new planting was needed to stabilize the earth and retain moisture.

Over 100,000 tree seedlings of nine different native species have been planted and are flourishing. They were almost invisible when first planted in 2007 and 2008, but have done well and will become much more apparent to park users during the coming growing season. In addition to the babies, 60 fine young trees about 7ft high were planted along the main roads last fall. 

They are a start towards restoring the forest canopy that used to make those roads cool and green during the hot summer months. This spring many more larger trees will be planted, including some which will fill the gaps in the avenues of copper beeches on Heather Road.

("Copper beeches", you may say. "They are not a native species". However, the plan permits some exceptions for tree species which have been brought to the park in the past and have a special place in its history. Other non-native species, such as Norway maple and Scots pine, which grow very strongly and eventually push out native trees, are gradually being eradicated.)

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