Sometimes, a single individual helps make something big happen. Recently such an individual visited the Holcomb Tree Trail arboretum as a guest of the Friends of Holcomb Farm. The visitor was retired City of Hartford forester John Kehoe. Here is how he helped bring about the Tree Trail.
In 2015, a small group of long-time locals (Peggy Lareau, Barry Avery and Eric Lukingbeal) thought that an arboretum at Holcomb Farm would make a lot of sense. None were foresters, or arborists. None had any training or relevant education. They had visited arboretums in Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina and California and talked to the folks in charge. They shared their idea with the Friends of Holcomb Farm and began discussions with the Granby Board of Selectmen and Town Manager. But their idea needed a push.
The group turned to Ed Richardson of Glastonbury, who had been active for decades with the Connecticut Forest and Park Association. Richardson led tree walks all over the state and was one of the chief contributors to the book, Connecticut’s Notable Trees. The group described their hopes and their concerns about their lack of experience and Richardson suggested they get in touch with John Kehoe.
Kehoe listened to the group’s ideas and told them he wanted to look at the site before giving advice. He met the group at the farm, and they walked the roughly 40 acres of meadows. Kehoe encouraged the group to persist even though they lacked formal training or qualifications. He urged them to keep going and to plan for sustainability over the long term. He told them he liked what he saw, and suggested they ask a UConn landscape professor, John Alexopoulos, if he would bring one of his landscape classes to study the site.
When the group approached the professor with Kehoe’s suggestion, he agreed to have his class study the site and assess its potential to host an arboretum. The class and the professor spent several days walking the site, researching and taking soil samples. They produced a 75-page document, oversized and illustrated, that discussed the site’s suitability for arboretum purposes.
With that report in hand, the group was able to convince the selectmen to let them start planting trees. In October 2018, the first 16 bare root trees were planted. The tallest was six feet tall; some of these trees are now more than 20 feet tall. Planting has continued every year since, and there are now more than 100 trees. All are labeled, mulched and protected against buck rub. Volunteers mow the several miles of paths and water the trees. The arboretum was recently certified as a Level 1 Arboretum by ArbNet, an international group run by Morton Arboretum in Illinois.
A few weeks ago, Kehoe returned to the meadows, walked the trails, and gave the tree trail volunteers (Walter Ford, Jack and Peggy Lareau, Shirley Murtha, Barry Avery, Laura Midura and Eric Lukingbeal) advice about the young trees and about what to plant in the coming years. He talked about the changing climate and its impact on particular species. Kehoe had one recommendation: plant more oaks.
Looking back, Kehoe’s involvement was essential to the arboretum’s success. The trees will take 50 years to mature, far longer than any of those who planted them will be around. But their descendants will enjoy them.
Submitted by Friends of Holcomb Farm