Why Are the Ginkgoes Coming Down on Clayton Street?

As part of the infrastructure improvements slated for East Clayton Street in downtown Athens the sidewalks are going to be broken up and widened to 13 feet. And the large ginkgo trees, planted in the 1970s, are going to be cut down.

The trees, says county horticulturist Roger Cauthen, are at the end of a long life cycle. Most urban trees last about five years; the 50 or so ginkgoes in downtown Athens have lived 40 years.

They have done so for a variety of reasons: the soil in which they were planted, and on which the sidewalks were laid in the 1930s, isn't packed clay, it's good, dark dirt. The water from the roofs of downtown buildings is piped underground, where it waters the trees' roots. And the roots were "opportunistic," creating growth pathways under the sidewalks, Cauthen says.

But the trees are in what Cauthen called "an emerging spiral of decline," with about one in 20 in good shape. Their roots are now entwined with underground cables, and they are having a hard time finding nutrients. If nothing were done, in five years, the gingkoes would all likely be dead, he says. So they'll be coming down, sometime in the next year or so as the improvement project proceeds.

It's not likely the ginkgoes will be replaced with other ginkgoes. For one big reason: determining the gender of a ginkgo isn't something you can do until the trees are about 15 years old, Cauthen says. And even then, the pronouncements are often wrong. If you happen to get a female, well, you're in for a lot of work and vigilance.

That odor you smell downtown sometimes in the fall? That yucky aroma of stale beer and vomit? It may not be something left over from a freshman college student's night out on the town.

It could be coming from a fruiting female ginkgo tree. 

"The noxious odor is just unbearable," says Cauthen. His crew and he try to pick the fruit of the female ginkgoes while it's still green, before it has a chance to ripen. "It's about a two-week work project, and I'd say we get about 99 percent of the fruit. So there may still be a faint aroma."

What trees will replace the ginkgoes?

Cauthen isn't sure. He says the trees will need to grow fast, provide shade, be able to hold Christmas lights and to help create the same ambience downtown Athens now enjoys. No one tree can do all of those things, but he plans to work with the Tree Council, foresters, professors, landscape architects and garden clubs to find the best replacements.

One thing is certain, however: the newly planted trees won't stink.