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Yes,
Those Are
American Elms
By Mark Zoeller
 Guests who enter the front plaza at the
Louisville Zoo are greeted by a pleasant surprise, a comfortable plaza
area with guest services
facilities (complete with family style restrooms and a first aid office)
and pleasant landscaping.
To expand the plaza, much of the old landscaping had to be removed and
was transplanted to Gorilla Forest.
The front plaza landscape is intended
to be representative of our Kentucky flora. The plantings and the
huge limestone boulders that create planters throughout the entry help
us achieve that look.
The project provided the opportunity
to create much more of a plaza feel with unimpeded traffic flow and open
site lines. To provide shade for this gathering area, tree cut
outs were allowed in the concrete.
Much discussion ensued regarding the
species of tree that would best represent our Kentucky landscape and
stand up to the urban requirements that would be needed.
Working with John Korfhage, of Korfhage
Landscape and Designs, the Zoo was able to come up with the perfect
species for the area, the American elm. After nearly a fifty year
absence, the American elm is back and available for planting.
These "new" elms are the result of a
breakthrough in research that identified types of American elms that can
survive Dutch elm's disease. Dutch elm's disease is a fungus
that arrived in America in 1930 and devastated a species of tree that
once dominated area landscapes. Parks, parkways and campus
plantings were decimated as the disease spread.
For obvious reasons, the American elm fell
out of favor and had not been available commercially since the 1940's.
The rebirth of the American elm is due to
research at the National Arboretum through the Department of
Agriculture. Denny Townsend, a tree geneticist, discovered three
variables of American elm that can tolerate Dutch elm disease.
The trees located on the Zoo's front plaza
are Princeton elms. The name comes from the town of Princeton, N.J.
where the elm still lines the streets. It is unclear what gives
these trees a genetic ability to tolerate Dutch elm's disease.
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