LEHI, Utah – Ivory Homes donated 41 new trees to its Colony Pointe community in an effort to replace trees damaged by fire blight. This disease is caused by bacterium Erwinia amylovora that causes trees to look contaminated and lifeless. The Colony Pointe community was effected because more than half the street trees in the community were pome fruit trees like Flowering Pear and Crabapple that are especially susceptible to this bacterium.

Fire blight leaves trees leafless and lifeless.

The bark of a fire blight affected tree becomes dark and cracked.

Many volunteers within the community worked very hard to prune and remove the fire blight and preserve their decade old trees — however many were not able to be saved. Therefore, TreeUtah educated community members on the best tree planting techniques for the new supply of trees.

Community members learn how to prepare a tree for planting.

One of the most common mistakes made when planting a tree is not making the whole wide enough. It is best to dig the hole two to five times wider than the root ball of the tree. This allows the roots to have ample soft soil to grow horizontally, in search of water and oxygen.

Volunteers break up a root ball to remove all girdling roots (those growing inward instead of outward).

Community members were able to choose between Littleleaf Linden, Autumn Blaze Maple and Eastern Redbud for the park strip. Planting multiple varieties will help eliminate disease from spreading through the community because disease usually passes between trees of the same kind. Two London Plane trees were also planted in the community are to help increase shade.

Four trees were added to the Colony Pointe park and public space.

Ivory Homes is proud to have sponsored this Colony Pointe HOA tree planting. We're thankful to all the community members who removed trees and helped plant the new ones as well. A huge thank you to TreeUtah for educating and supervising the correct planting of these new trees. We can't wait to see how the trees will do come spring! Those who are interested in submitting a request for a new tree should click here.

Colony Pointe community members work together to replace street trees.