Princeton Township treasures its trees. It’s been designated a Tree City USA. There’s even a tree on the official municipal seal. So why is the township planning to sell 300 of its spruce trees to the highest bidder?
According to Township Arborist Greg O’Neil, it’s just the sustainable thing to do — and might ultimately allow more trees to be grown.
The trees up for bid are among those planted more than 10 years ago on the Gulick Preserve, a plot of passive open space now owned by the township, that are now mature, ranging from six to 15 feet in height, Mr. O’Neil said.
Rather than let them “grow into each other and die,” the township is planning to sell them off, he said.
”It’s a good way to get these trees utilized rather than having them kill each other off through overcrowding,” he said.
According to the bid document posted on the township’s Web site, the trees are marked with blue ribbons and can be viewed at the site through Thursday. Bids are due to the township by Friday.
”We have great activity on it,” Mr. O’Neil said, noting that he expects the bidding pool to consist of “some of your larger landscape installation companies.” How high the offers are will be determined by the amount of competition, he said.
Once the sale is completed, the deadline for the removal trees’ removal — which will only be permitted “when the ground is firm,” according to the document — would be Nov. 30, unless it’s later extended by the township, Mr. O’Neil said.
But that won’t be the end of it.
Because much of the land will be left vacant after the trees are transplanted, there’s a good possibility the township will duplicate a plan it has been cultivating elsewhere in the township: using township land to grow trees to be used in reforestation efforts and in area parks.
The effort, spearheaded by Mr. O’Neil and Township Engineer Bob Kiser, began about five years ago with the donation of a significant number of seedlings by Princeton University after its expansion of graduate student housing at the Lawrence Apartments off Alexander Street resulted in a “significant level of tree removal,” Mr. O’Neil said.
With the Shade Tree Commission’s blessing, approximately 1,200 trees were planted in the passive-use portion of Barbara Smoyer Park, creating the township’s very own natural nursery.
Now, “the first wave of them are beginning to be utilized on township property,” Mr. O’Neil said, referring to sites in Turning Basin Park and Smoyer Park along the Van Dyke White Woods. “We’ll utilize these trees to reforest the area that was lost (during the university’s development) and throughout the township.”
Part of the reforestation effort will be using native trees to replace invasive species of plants, which have overtaken many park areas, Mr. O’Neil said. Currently, the nursery stock includes elms, maples, oaks, dogwoods, cherries, and ornamental trees.
”We’re actually going in and removing a lot of that (invasive) stuff and putting in these,” he said. “We were very particular in what we planted and these trees should be very suitable for the area.”
And when the stock becomes reduced, seedlings will be replenished “in perpetuity,” Mr. O’Neil said.
Despite an attrition rate of up to 20 percent — newer trees require “constant maintenance and upkeep” — the nursery “will definitely be a significant savings” in years to come, Mr. O’Neil said.
”The more trees that get planted, the greater our sustainability,” he said.
