The ice is gone, but Windsor-Essex trees will spend months recovering from last week's storm

Sap slowly dripping out from a tree's severed limb at Holiday Beach Conservation Area is one of many signs of injury to Windsor-Essex's greenspace in southwestern Ontario following last week's ice storm.

Though the ice from one of the region's worst storms has melted, dozens of tree limbs still litter front yards and parks across the region.

Last Wednesday, freezing rain accumulation weighed down trees, causing limbs to snap and cuttingpower to thousands across Windsor-Essex. Seven days after the uncommon weather event, tree limbs are still being clearedacross a region that is known to have relatively low tree coverage.

The Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA) is out this week, specifically taking care of the trees at Holiday Beach.

Despite the severity of the storm, after assessing the trees in the area,ERCAforester Paul Girouxsaid it wasn't "catastrophic."

"It was definitely a bad storm.I think other areas of the county might have been hit worse ... but I don't think it's quite as bad as maybe I was expecting," he said.

"Yes, there's lots of work to be done, there's lots of limbs down, but a lot of the limbs are not too big."

Giroux said it's hard to know for certain how many trees the storm impacted across Windsor-Essex, but he doesn't believe the region's tree coverage was significantly lowered because of it.

Anecdotally, he's heard the southern shore, whereAmherstburg and Leamingtonare, might have been hit worse than the northern side of the region. He said non-native tree species, like certain poplars and willows, are weak-wooded and seem to have sustained worse injuries versus stronger wooded trees like oak and hickory.

As of 2019, the City of Windsor's tree canopy was at 19 per cent. To help increase this, the city has spent millions since 2020,doublingthe number of large trees planted to 2,000.

The City of Windsor said it received more than 1,000 calls for service regarding trees with broken or fallen limbs,but it doesn't know exactly how many trees this translates into.

About half of these calls were emergency situations, said the city's forester,Yemi Adeyeye.

"We've covered a lot of the emergencies and a lot of the urgent, so right now every part of the city should be safe," Adeyeyetold CBC Radio's Windsor Morning on Monday.

In an email, the city's forestry department told CBC News that it will conduct an assessment to understand the impact on tree cover after the storm clean-up.

Months before trees begin healing process

Of the trees in Holiday Beach Conservation Area's maintained area, Giroux estimatesa small percentage were damaged and need to be trimmed. He said he saw about two that were uprooted from the storm and another that likely needed to be removed as it had a severe split.

According to Giroux, many of the silver maple trees in the area are mature, having been around for about 80 to 100 years.

Despite their age,Giroux said, the trees are relatively OK and will heal.

"They have experienced many, many storms over their lifetime and limbs will break during those storms and the trees are continually growing and continually healing themselves," he said, adding he noticed the trees have broken at old injury points.

And while this doesn't kill the trees, it will set them back during this time of year when the maples are very active.

Giroux advised that anyone who taps their tree for syrup should hold off if the maple was severely damaged in the storm.

By July or August, Giroux said, where the limbs broke away from the main stem, it will be noticeable that the healing process has begun.

For homeowners whohave a tree that was severely damaged or is now lopsided as a result of the storm, Giroux suggested having an arbouristor forester do an assessment.

But he said its best to have trees trimmed as leaving them with jagged ends will make it harder for them to heal.

"Sometimes it takes these events to get people thinking about these natural assets and the ecological services they provide," he said.

Tree limb pickups are happening across the region. The city's schedule is here and the county's is here.