Keeping the Green green: Tree plan to preserve heart of Weston

Weston’s Town Green was designed more than 100 years ago. Since then, it has become the home for town events, high school graduations, winter sledding and daily exercise for the two- and four-legged in town.

This year, the town has created a plan to preserve the Green’s historic character through future tree plantings.

“Always found in the best types of old New England villages”

In the 1910s, the town hired Arthur Shurcliff, a landscape architect best known for the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and his work on the Boston Metropolitan Park System, to design the green space. His design included a path across the space and the rectangle of trees in front of Town Hall. Today, the sloping green is lined by trees that provide vibrant oranges and yellows in the fall, and whites and pinks in the spring.

Early in the planning process, the Committee on Improvement of the Center of the Town of Weston stated its goals: to reduce noise and danger from automobiles, to find suitable locations for town buildings, to create a town green “always found in the best types of old New England villages.”

According to “Farm Town to Suburb: The History and Architecture of Weston, Massachusetts 1830-2020,” by Pam Fox, president of the Weston Historical Society, Weston’s decision to redesign the town center came from a sense of pride surrounding the town’s bicentennial in 1913. Benjamin Loring Young, a select board member of the era, said the redesign helped Weston anticipate a vibrant future.

“There was no desire to disturb the rural simplicity of the town, but many persons felt that we should anticipate future growth and so arrange the centre of Weston that its beauty could never be marred by squalor or congestion,” he said.

Planning for the future

The Town Green maintains its position as the heart of Weston today, still bordered by Town Hall, the First Parish Church and the Josiah Smith Tavern. The watering trough on the corner that once served passing horses now holds floral plantings.

In order to preserve the character of the area, Weston’s Tree Advisory Group hired Crowley Cottrell, a Boston-based landscape architecture firm, to design a plan for future tree plantings.

On Oct. 21, the town’s Tree Advisory Group reviewed the final version of the Town Green succession planting plan, which has been in the works for the past year. The plan designates where and what types of trees will be planted in and around Town Green to maintain the area’s character.

According to Carol Lee, the advisory group chair, the tree planting plan was prompted by the desire to create a deliberate approach to maintaining the Town Green, instead of reacting every time a tree needed to be replaced.

“We felt that it wasn’t cohesive. We were planting random species. We planted some trees that were taken out because it was decided they didn’t fit in the overall look. We don’t want to do that again,” Lee said.

The new plan maintains the sight line between Town Hall and the Josiah Smith Tavern on the opposite side of the Green. Crowley Cottrell suggests planting horse chestnuts and honey locusts along Town House Road and honey locusts and London planes along Boston Post Road.

The tree health of the area is also a concern, according to Lee.

“We lost a lot of the horse chestnuts over the last decade. We lost ash trees across Church Road,” she said.

She added that heat and construction have also put strain on sugar maples and horse chestnuts.

According to Jacquelyn Jackson, Public Works deputy director of operations and a certified arborist who works with the Tree Advisory Group, a tree survey showed that the age of the trees will become an increased concern in the coming years because they could become more susceptible to disease. Trees will be replaced when they are unable to be saved or become hazardous.

“A lot of the trees are older, and we really do need to start thinking of replacing them and start building Weston’s future tree canopy,” Jackson said.

At the 2024 Annual Town Meeting, residents appropriated $40,000 to create a planting plan for the Town Green, Knox Park and Lamson Park. This fall, the Tree Advisory Group went over the final design by Crowley Cottrell. The money did not include funds for planting. According to Lee, trees will be planted as the opportunity arises through Eversource’s annual tree donations to the town.

“The next step is to figure out if the [Community Preservation Act] will fund it and write a grant,” Lee said. “Meanwhile, we will keep going on with Eversource from year to year.”

Jackson said the plan will make it easier to respond when it comes time to replace a tree.

“This really cuts down on time. Moving forward, it helps us maintain sight lines that were put in place, and determine the variety of what the tree is,” Jackson said. “It makes the decision a little bit easier.”

She added that she thought the plan was faithful to the original design from more than 100 years ago, echoing the goals of the Tree Advisory Group.

“It’s such an iconic symbol of Weston. It’s historic,” Lee said. “We needed a plan.”