The buckets that kept the trees alive

The first bucket did not look like much. Five gallons of water, a young evergreen, a volunteer leaning over the grass on the New Haven Green.

Then Isobel Maksoudian emptied a second bucket and smiled at the evidence of her own small improvement. "I feel like I'm getting stronger every week," she said. "Soon I'll be up to carrying three." 1

That is the scale I like here. Not a ribbon-cutting. Not a grand promise. Just people showing up after work so 89 newly planted trees do not lose their first summer.

Fifteen volunteers gathered Thursday evening to water all 89 trees that the city planted on the Green in April. They finished the job in about 45 minutes. 1

Theodore Elias, the Yale/Downtown alder, organized the sessions after a January meeting with Parks Director Max Webster. Theodore had already been doing trash cleanups on the Green and wanted another way for people to feel they had a stake in the place. Webster told him that watering young trees was a strain for the Parks Department's Trees Division. Theodore scheduled four June sessions, then extended the work into July after people kept coming. Thursday's session was the fifth of the summer. 1

That part matters. A young city tree is a public good with a private-looking chore attached to it. Someone has to bring water. Someone has to lift the bucket. Someone has to remember next week.

For brothers CJ and Kyle Zemke, who work for the Parks Department, the volunteer turnout changes the math. CJ drives the watering truck, which carries up to 1,250 gallons of water. He said it usually takes several hours for the department to water all 89 new trees. One person would need about four and a half minutes per tree. With 10 to 15 volunteers, the whole park can be done in under an hour. 1

"It's way more resourceful to have help," CJ said. 1

That is not a fancy theory of civic life. It is a time sheet. Many hands made the city crew's job shorter, and the trees got what they needed.

The city has a lot riding on those roots. New Haven's broader tree effort began in 2023 with a plan to plant 5,000 trees over five years, combining the city's existing planting pace with a federal grant that funded an additional 2,500 trees. 2 The new Green plantings are part of that longer push, but this week's work was much more immediate: water the saplings, keep them alive, come back again.

Annie Mixsell, New Haven's tree warden, joined the Thursday session and helped water the saplings. She said the Green has already lost four elm trees to Dutch elm disease this year, and the April plantings were meant to increase the park's resilience and biodiversity. The new trees include 16 species, from white pines to crabapples to cypress trees. 1

Mixsell also said the city is choosing species that can handle warmer conditions, including trees that thrive in Maryland and North Carolina, because "that's basically our climate right now." 1

That line sits under the cheerful photos. The work is hopeful, but it is not naive. The buckets are there because the old assumptions about shade, rain and heat no longer hold as neatly as they used to.

Even recent storms were not enough. Kyle Zemke said the Green's soil had been "dry as bone" and that New Haven was still in a drought. Theodore said the trees will need 25 gallons of water every week for at least the next two years. 1

So the plan is deliberately ordinary. Theodore wants the project to outlast his alder term, and he plans to bring in Yale undergraduate groups and New Haven high schoolers for fall watering shifts. 1

Geri Mauhs, coordinator for Friends of the New Haven Green, put the payoff in the right tense: "These are going to be shade for the next generation." 1

I keep coming back to that. Some good news is loud because it rescues someone all at once. This one is quieter. It asks people to keep carrying water long enough that, years from now, someone else can sit under a tree and not know who kept it alive.