Teacher, Daisy Banco, helps Jack Lamonica dig the hole in which to plant the American chestnut sapling.
On a cool and rainy fall day in mid-October, members of the Lyon Park Community in Arlington County planted a pair of American chestnuts, donated by the VA-TACF Chapter. These 6th generation hybrids represent a select few American chestnuts to be planted in the Washington, D.C. area and they joined the Lyon Park Community as part of its centenary celebrations. One hundred years after Lyon Park was founded, and about 100 years after a blight decimated American chestnuts in the local hillsides, the trees have returned to Lyon Park’s forest.
The planting involved careful identification of sites that would suit chestnuts by the park arborist and preparation of the soil by O.D. Dalton from Landed LLC. More specifically, the seedlings have been settling on either side of a buried spring run in a quiet corner of the community-owned Lyon Park. When established in 1919, the Lyon Park Community was an early stop on the Washington Boulevard Streetcar Line out of the District of Colombia. It was known as a respite from Washington’s summer heat, filled with summer cottages, craftsman-style bungalows, and Sears & Roebuck Kit Houses. It remains a welcoming and diverse community and is now a stop for two Washington Area Metro lines. As one of the older planned neighborhoods in Arlington, Lyon Park is adjacent to Ft. Myers and Arlington National Cemetery, close to the Pentagon and Amazon’s new headquarters.
Lyon Park residents were very excited to welcome the new chestnut trees. They also learned a lot about this remarkable species from VA-TACF Chapter member, Jack Lamonica, who provided an intriguing educational presentation just before the planting. In the years ahead, everyone looks forward to having healthy spreading American chestnuts shading the park and participating in the tree’s return to our nation’s Capitol.