Originally uploaded to Flickr by digitaleffie
The ginkgo tree is a thing of beauty with its stick straight branches reaching toward the sky and fan shaped leaves that are a lovely shade of green all spring and summer, before turning to a bright shade of yellow come fall. Well, at least the male ginkgo tree is a thing of beauty. The female ginkgo, she’s a whole other beast. Her flowers turn into a berry-like fruit that, when broken open, smell like feces. If you have a tree, or more, on your block—the highest concentration of female ginkgo trees are in Wards 1, 2 and 6—you are familiar with the stench that can begin when the fruit begins to form in summer and lasts throughout the fall, when the fruit finally falls to the ground.
Every year the District Department of Transportation’s Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) sprays female ginkgo trees in an attempt to stop the growth of the notoriously unpleasant fruit. Some years are more successful than others. This year the UFA will start spraying trees sooner than planned, thanks to the unseasonably warm weather. Beginning this evening, the UFA will start spraying trees in Wards 1, 2 and 6 before moving on to Wards 4, 3, 7, 8 and 5.
ANC commissioners will be sent specific spraying locations, but you are also welcome to contact The Urban Forestry Administration at (202) 671-5133 with questions about spraying.
If you are concerned that your ginkgo tree has been forgotten, you can also contact Tommy Wells’s office at (202) 724-8072, and he can make a request on your behalf.
The ginkgo tree that has tortured us for years was sprayed last night! We are hopeful that this is the first year that we won’t be overwhelmed by the awful fruit of the ginkgo tree.