Beauty is an ongoing effort

The Westover Road esplanade in the 1920s, as pictured in a Hilgemann & Schaaf developer’s brochure.

Photo taken from the same location one century later.

Historic Southwood Park is a beautiful neighborhood! Part of the beauty is natural and part of it is planned. Sometimes those things come together.

Here’s an example: the 1920s photo on the Westover Road esplanade shows how the street and sidewalks were planned to “miss” having to cut down prime old-growth trees. One of those trees survived until this year. It’s the sycamore tree just right of the streetlight in the foreground of the 1920s photo. Over the last century, it grew into a really impressive specimen. Unfortunately, it became hollow and was removed by the City for safety.

A big part of that familiar landscape was gone… and people missed it. As part of the Association’s commitment to our tree canopy, the Board purchased two London Plane trees from Fort Wayne Trees that were planted this week. London Plane trees are a cross of the American sycamores. They are more tolerant of disease, pollution, and urban areas. They can grow to 75-100’ tall and are long-lived. Board Member Christine Baron made the arrangements on this project. Thanks, Christine!

It’s our hope the trees planted in 2021 will still be there in 2121. Beauty is an ongoing effort.

The Beautification Committee could use some help watering the trees twice weekly this year. If you can help with this, please send us a message!