The tree cover in Cascade Gardens at the Banff National Park administration buildings may be looking a little thinner this week after crews cut down 60 to 65 old and unhealthy trees.
Steve Malins, heritage programs manager for Banff National Park, said Monday (March 18) the majority of the trees cut down in the gardens were identified as hazards to the public.
“Our fire and vegetation specialist identified trees which, for public safety reasons, needed to be removed from the Cascades of Time Gardens,” Malins said.
“It is a garden. It is a managed landscape and trees do grow and eventually die; there’s blowdown, there’s disease, there’s public safety or threats to other resources that we have here,” he said.
Malins said items Parks wanted to protect from falling trees included cultural resources in the garden, such as the historic fence that surrounds the administration building grounds or contemporary infrastructure.
“Public safety is definitely a priority and that’s what we were primarily interested in,” which is why, Malins added, the work is being done in winter when visitation to the gardens is low.
Parks, meanwhile, is planning to plant approximately 15 trees to fill in some of the gaps left by the removed trees.
Malins said Parks is also undertaking a vegetation succession plan this year to go along with the landscape plan.
“The garden has a high historic value for us, it does create a presence that supports the heritage characteristics of the administration building, which is a historic building.
“And once we do our vegetation succession plan this year, that will better prepare us for future replanting. We may decide that in an area where a large clump of spruce trees is that maybe we want more lawn in that area.”
Malins said the plan is to introduce a variety in age in the replanted trees to avoid having trees reach maturity all at the same time.
Parks also removed six fruit trees, primarily crabapple trees, which he said are a wildlife attractant.
