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Triangle
Garage Update
In the winter of
2005, the UW Grounds Maintenance Department began a project, with input
from the College of Forest Resources, to improve
the health of the trees growing on the Triangle Garage. The Triangle
Garage is located between NE Pacific Street, NE Pacific Place and Montlake
Boulevard NE, and provides parking for the UW Medical Center. When
the garage was built, the subsoil was piled onto the roof, covered with
a thin layer of topsoil, and planted with several hundred Leyland
cypress
trees (x Cuppressocyparis leylandii).
The Grounds Maintenance Department thinned the trees on one section
of the garage in order to reduce competition for light and water and
increase air circulation.
These improvements were expected to improve the health of the trees and reduce
the incidence of a fungal disease called Seridium canker.
The unintended result of
thinning was windthrow. Because the tree roots were unable to extend down into
the compacted soil, they were susceptible to blowing
over in high wind. Thinning exacerbated this problem by exposing the previously
protected interior of the stand.
In January of 2006, most of the trees in the
thinned section blew over or became unstable. In the wind storm of December
16, 2006, most of the trees growing on an adjacent section of the garage also
blew
over. The Grounds Maintenance Department is currently removing fallen or leaning
trees.
The future of the Triangle Garage landscape is uncertain. There is a strong
possibility that this area will be leveled and used as a parking lot during
construction
of an underground Sound Transit Station, beginning in 2008. The Grounds Maintenance
Department is reluctant to beautify a landscape that will be destroyed within
two years, and has not yet decided how to manage the site.
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