It may have taken two years, A few diversions, delays and many meetings with town officials and boards but Dedham is now hosting twenty Chinese Elm trees at the Endicott Estate in a holding nursery beside the Greenhouse thanks to the State Dept. of Environmental Management and the James Joyce Ramble.

Staff of the world’s fine arts running event happened upon an urban forestry program which is a trust fund for the planting of public trees called Mass Releaf and managed by the State Department of Environmental Management.  In 2003 the race director wrote a proposal for the planting of twenty Elm trees that would coincide with the twenty years that the Ramble 10K has been in existence in Dedham.   The trees would also serve to replace over forty large trees of that variety that were lost on the Estate to Dutch elm disease.  It was announced in March of that year by state officials that the grant request was approved for the purchase of 20 Princeton Elm trees and James Joyce Ramble director Martin Hanley contacted a large nursery to arrange for the purchase and delivery of the trees.  However the carefully conceived plan ran into problems when a nationwide search for this Elm tree species proved fruitless and Hanley had to revisit the state proposal process to have the more available Chinese Elm tree approved for planting in Dedham instead during the next year’s funding cycle.

Meanwhile plans were put on the fast track to have town meeting approve a bond issue to upgrade the grounds of the Endicott Estate to coincide with the East Street project.  As a result, the Endicott Commission and the Department of Public Works did not know where stately 20 trees, eventually reaching seventy feet in the air, could be planted without complicating the extensive rehabilitation of the grounds taking place over the next year.

In stepped renowned landscape designer and Dedham resident Mabel Herwig who proposed construction of a nursery to hold the trees until their permanent installation.  Hanley had the state environmental agency approve the idea and the trees were finally delivered with Mrs. Herwig drafting a design for the nursery

The last hurdle for the James Joyce Ramble was for the actual excavation of a plot of land behind the Endicott Greenhouse for the nursery.  Martin Hanley heard about a contractor in Dedham by the name of James J. Walsh who does a lot of specialized work at some of the large and well appointed estates in the county.   Mr. Walsh generously agreed to lend a hand and for two days last week the two men dug out the grounds and planted the nursery, planting the last tree on Friday, June 4^th, the 15^th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising -appropriate as the James Joyce Ramble has focused for several years on human right abuses in the Peoples Republic of China and last year had Xu Wenli founder of the Chinese Democracy Wall Movement as a grand marshal.

The James Joyce Ramble invites visitors to the Endicott Elm tree nursery and would like to thank everyone who worked with the staff to make the project a reality.

The 22^nd James Joyce Ramble is on April 24.