Core values: Arborists work to save aging Heywood Meadow apple trees
A team of volunteers gathered within the 8.4-acre meadow to help revitalize the small orchard.
A few hours after sunrise, with traffic beginning to circle Monument Square, a small crew moved carefully among the bare branches of Heywood Meadow’s aging apple trees.
Members of the Heywood Meadow Stewardship Committee watched as arborists climbed, trimming dead wood and shaping branches.
Peter Lee, committee chair, said it was an effort to help the trees recover and to protect the character of one of Acton’s most visible landscapes.
“There’s three of them, and they’re all dying. They’ve been dying for years,” Lee said, watching as the team discussed which branch to pull down next. “One of them is in very bad shape, so we’re trying to give a proper pruning to try to keep them healthy and sustain them for years to come.”
The Heywood Meadow Stewardship Committee is a nine-member volunteer panel appointed by the town’s Natural Resources Commission. Its mission is to preserve the 8.4-acre meadow that has remained undeveloped near the heart of Acton.
“You could stand here in the meadow and think that you’re in the 19th century,” Lee said, pointing to the Ralph Waldo Emerson House next door and Orchard House down the street.
To preserve that look, the committee sometimes has to get creative with its money.
‘Good for everybody’
“I think that right now with the town being very careful with its budget, we can’t really afford to do things like this that just make things more attractive,” Lee said.
When EcoQuiet, a Acton landscaping company specializing in environmentally friendly tools, offered its services for free, the committee jumped at the opportunity.
“It’s quite expensive to get an arborist to come and do a proper pruning and trimming,” Lee said. “It’s really good for everybody.”
EcoQuiet owner George Carrette said winter is a good time to do the job because “there are less pathogens floating around.”
“We figured that in the winter, we don’t really have that much to do, right?” Carrette said. “So why don’t we just do something kind of productive rather than shutting people in the shop all day. It’s a way to do something good.”
The committee is getting ready to share its work with the public.
On Thursday, February 12, the Heywood Meadow Stewardship Committee will host Historic Landscape Preservation in Acton: A 25-Year Retrospective of Heywood Meadow at 141 Keyes Road. The presentation will explore how the committee organized to protect the meadow.
For Lee, though, maintaining the meadow is about more than trimming some trees.
“Yes, we want a modern thriving city and town,” Lee said, “but we also want to protect some vestiges of our history, and we already have it here. Let’s preserve it right here.”
