For more than 30 years, the Friends of Holcomb Farm’s mission has been the same: To preserve, promote and utilize an historic working farm in West Granby. Preservation took a giant step this January, when a large grove of invasive trees was cut down and reduced to tiny chips.
The trees were so-called Trees of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima). They grew along a rock wall running parallel to Simsbury Road several hundred feet uphill on the east side of the farm.
Trees of Heaven are native to China and were first brought to this country in 1784. At the time, they were viewed as desirable, tough and fast growing, with purple blossoms in the spring. They were offered in nursery catalogs into the twentieth century. They are now naturalized over much of the United States.
They are very fast-growing at three to five feet per year and reach 60 feet tall. They sucker and quickly result in spreading colonies. Leading authorities Michael Dirr and Keith Warren describe the species as “remarkably adaptable to salt, grime, soot, air pollution, low and high pH, heavy clay soil, sandy soil, and low oxygen tensions in the soil.” They add “that for impossible conditions this tree has a place.” It is extremely common in much of the Bronx, where it grows among abandoned buildings.
The decision to remove them was driven by their status as the favored host tree of the Spotted Lantern Fly (Lycorma delicatula), or SLF. According to the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, the SLF has two small established populations in New Haven and Fairfield Counties, and individuals have been identified in numerous towns. It arrived in the state in 2018. Prior to its arrival, it had destroyed many vineyards in Pennsylvania. It is a particular threat to forests, orchards, vineyards, and nurseries. The SLF arrived from China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and it attacks over 70 woody plant species. A sap-feeding plant hopper, it feeds on agricultural crops like apples, grapes, hops, and fruit trees. Friends of Holcomb Farm was advised by the CAES director, Dr. Jeffrey Ward, to remove all the Trees of Heaven. The CAES website reports that the SLF is “probably the most serious agricultural pest to hit the U.S. shores in a long time.”
The Friends contracted with Bobby MacAulay’s company, MacAulay Excavation and Tree Services LLC, of East Granby, to remove the trees. In late January, MacAulay and his crew removed about 30 trees along the rock wall and ground the stumps and wood into small chips. The largest stump was more than 36 inches in diameter, and was only about 35 years old, based on a ring count. The work took two days.