Historic cemetery gets much needed haircut

Medford, Ore., — More than 100 years old, Medford’s historic Eastwood Cemetery has trees just about the same age.

Twisted and ratty, with dead limbs, those trees have never been professionally cared for to this extent.

“These are native white oaks all around the cemetery and with the mistletoe, and just the age of the trees, they need some care to get them back to the best health they can be.”

While keeping the cemetery grounds neat is important, the City of Medford’s Arborist – Adam Airoldi says the trees often take a back seat.

“You can see the amount of work that needs to be done here, if we were to try and do that with regular operating funds, that would be a significant chunk of the work we have to do throughout the city.”

The Parks and Recreation Department decided it was time to change that.

The department came up with 10,000 dollars to help clean up the cemetery, and hired four tree services from the around the valley to get the job done.

“Everybody is becoming friends and meeting with your arch rivals if you will, but no it’s a good community, the tree community is a good community.”

Matthew Metcalf with Beaver Tree Service says while the work all the crews were doing wasn’t different from any other day, the environment was.

“There’s normally just one tree service on a job site, but looking around and seeing all these other tree services putting in all this work and effort trying to get this all landscape cleaned up, pruned and everything – it’s actually really cool to see.”

And with about 20 men working on the old oak trees at once, the job is getting done quicker than usual.

“I think it’s something where people can learn from each other, and be able to kind of get that team work and competition aspect going to really make efficient work of a big project like this.”

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