Despite the hopes of town officials, the uptown Wadesboro trees will never grow much larger than they are now, according to Aimee Colf, an horticulturist with Anson County Extension Center.
The trees have drawn some citizen complaints since they have been left unpruned for weeks, resulting in random thin shoots that take away from the trees’ otherwise uniform appearance. Both the Wadesboro council and the board of Uptown Wadesboro, Inc., have agreed to not prune the trees to see if they will grow beyond their small stature. The town has received multiple complaints from people saying that the tree shoots are in the way and that they are unsightly, according to Town Manager Alex Sewell and Police Chief Thedis Spencer.
During the council meeting on Monday, Councilman John Ballard said he thinks the town needs to take some action with the trees, saying that the trees are not “aesthetically pleasing” since the town ceased pruning them. “A holly bush is a holly bush, and doesn’t grow like a leaf bush,” he said.
Mayor Bill Thacker disagreed, saying he has noted improvements in the trees’ growth. “Some of them are really flourishing,” he said, adding that the trees receiving more sunlight look better than those in the shade.
Although she isn’t sure exactly what the trees are, Colf said they’re about as big as they will get. “Those can never be shade trees because they’re shrubs that were trained to look like trees,” she said “They’re not really something that I think will do what they want them to do.”
Even if they do grow, Colf doesn’t think it will be worth the wait. “I think will just send out shoots like they’ve been doing,” she said. “They’d probably get a little bigger, but they’d look unsightly for a very long time because you’ve got to let those shoots grow out… I understand they want to see what happens and what it’s going to do, but I just don’t see it filling out uniformly like they would like it to.”
As a shrub, it can be shaped like a tree but not branch out like one. “It’s not going to do what they have envisioned because it’s a shrub,” Colf said. “Just like with any other hedge row, it’s going to send up little spikes here and there that you have to shear back, but it’s not going to look like a real tree with oak limbs going out.”
During its meetings, Uptown Wadesboro has discussed replacing the trees with shade trees if the growth experiment fails. Colf said she thinks the town should keep the current ones. “They were kept pruned for a good reason,” she said. “It’s easy to get the Christmas lights on, it’s a nice, uniform shape, it’s not that big. And I know there’s concerns that bigger trees would obscure views of traffic and pedestrians. They are consistent and uniform around Uptown.”
Space is also an issue. “There are some places that have awnings where they could only be so high, and some places are more open,” Colf said. “Shade trees are nice, but with the awnings and the sidewalks that are so narrow, you can’t really do that with one tree that would make everyone happy.”
When approached by Uptown board members, Colf said she gave them a list of trees that may work if the board and town council decide to replace the trees. None of the trees on the list are perfect. “I gave them a list of trees below 15 ft. that they might consider,” she said. “Parks and Rec guys that need to keep up with these trees don’t really want deciduous trees that will take more maintenance, and you don’t want ones with berries, because they make a mess.”
One possibility came close. “Hollies would be OK, but they attract bees, so they don’t want that liability, either,” Colf said.
Another possible alternative is the Eastern Redbud. “That’s a nice small tree, but it likes to be in partial sun, and not every place is partial sun,” Colf said. “I don’t know if they want the same tree everywhere. The other thing about small trees is that they’re pretty delicate. Their limbs are pretty small, so if we have a snow or ice storm, they’ll be easily damaged. They also have small flowers that might attract some bees.”
Another possibility is the Yaupon Holly. “It’s evergreen, can be a hedge or small tree, and gets to be about 20 feet tall,” Colf said. “It kind of looks like if a boxwood were a tree. The bad thing about that is that it has berries, and we don’t want little kids picking up berries because they’re slightly toxic.”
Japanese Snowbells would be a good alternative, if they didn’t reach 20-30 feet in height, while the Southern Wax Myrtle has berries, needs frequent pruning, and is more prone to breakage, Colf said. “And this was days of me looking at different choices — there’s nothing that’s perfect,” she added.
This isn’t the first time she’s been approached by people hoping to change the trees. “I’ve been asked that question for nine years, and I haven’t come up with anything to replace them that would be structurally sound, small enough, evergreen, not obstruct traffic or pedestrians, fit in the sidewalk space, be drought tolerant, and have a wide soil tolerance, and be available within a reasonable distance,” she said. “You don’t want to travel 100 miles and put it in the back of the truck and have them get all torn up by the wind when you get them here.”
In summary: “I haven’t come up with anything better than what’s already out there.”