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Wake Forest is going to be building some
more sidewalks (see Road Roundup) on
Front Street and Stadium Drive and then
planting several trees.
My hope is that this time
they do not surround the trees with what
my Master Gardener Volunteer husband
calls “volcanoes.” You have seen them at
the base of newly planted trees: heaps
of mulch with a hole in the center
around the trunk. Most of the new trees
along Franklin Street and bordering
Paschal Golf Course on Durham Road have
“volcanoes.”
Trees do not need that kind
of mulching; in fact, it is a good way
to destroy a tree. Tree roots will take
the path of least resistance and most
are not deep in the earth. Roots like
these “volcanoes” and grow into them.
When a strong wind or a hurricane comes
along, the trees can topple over.
Several of the trees on
Franklin Street also have mistletoe in
their branches, a parasite that can sap
a tree’s vitality and lead to an early
death.
Wake Forest planner Lisa
Potts, a budding arborist as well as the
staff person for the urban forestry
board, said she knows the problems with
the “volcanoes” and is working to make
sure they are not used. The trees on
Franklin Street are on private property
and the new town plantings along Durham
Road are on a slant and not so volcanic
as they may seem.
She promises no “volcanoes”
for the trees along the new sidewalks
and said she is working to have the
mulching properly applied to the new
trees on North Main Street.
* * * *
I have been reading The News
& Observer’s series about how other
school districts handle explosive
student population growth. It is clear
people will pay – as much as $7,000 per
house in an impact fee – to move to
attractive communities.
It is also clear Wake County
and its school system have a totally
dysfunctional system for predicting and
charting growth and finding funds to pay
for the new schools.
Why, we might ask, doesn’t
the county and the school system want to
know about the building permits Wake
Forest and other towns issue? Why does
the county continue to allow
subdivisions like that monster Hasentree
on N.C. 98 and Stony Hill Road in the
Falls Lake watershed where they cannot
build schools? Why doesn’t the county
impose an impact fee? Why doesn’t the
state allow Wake County to impose a
sales tax devoted to school
construction? |
