The “Tree Amigos” of Long Branch
Mention the Three Tenors or The Three Musketeers and one immediately can vividly visualize them. But mention the The Three Amigos of Long Branch and questions abound.
Yet these stately three have already been acclaimed with provincial heritage status and have become celebrities of sorts in the Toronto Star. City-TV , CBC and local Etobicoke media.
Cumulatively, the “Tree Amigos” combine the growing and harsh climatic survival experience of well over 600 hundred years.
Still puzzled? how about the fact that these three ecosystems work extremely hard every day producing fresh oxygen and filtering out dirty carbon dioxide from the air for at least 16-20 people!
And so it is with ecological pleasure that we introduce you to ‘BIG RED’, ‘STOP 26’ and the largest in South West Toronto ‘TITAN’. and all with Ontario Forestry Heritage Tree status.
Located at Park Boulevard and Long Branch Ave, BIG RED was Long Branch’s first Heritage Tree. It escaped the great Long Branch Hotel fire of 1958 and has majestically served as a living beacon for the Legion’s 101 Long Branch Cenotaph ever since.
BIG RED a 200-year-old Red Oak, instantly received fame and affection with front page coverage, radio and TV media coverage during its heritage tree designation in the spring of 2018, becoming the first Heritage Tree in Long Branch.
STOP 26 at 42 Ash Cr. was recently featured as the Star’s Tree of the Week column by Megan Ogilvie.
A beautiful Silver Maple, STOP 26 is the last of a grove of trees at the former location of Colonel Fredrick B. Robin’s gates to the Pine Beach residential community c. 1910 at Lakeshore Boulevard. Stop 26 was the Mimico-Port Credit Rail-tram stop number 26.
Standing 110 feet tall, Titan may be the largest red oak found in this end of Toronto. It is estimated to be between 250 and 275 years old.
‘TITAN’ was featured in the inaugural issue of the Toronto Star favourite trees.
On Saturday, June 22 you can visit ALL of the Tree Amigos (Heritage Trees) with FREE admission to the Long Branch Garden Tour.
Plus you are invited to bring your drum, pow-pow, bongo or what have you to TITAN’s Drum Circle celebration, hosted by painter and songwriter Pat Rice at 15 Thirty Sixth Street between 1 and 2 pm – just where Lake Promenade turns towards the lake.