Peppered throughout Littleton, thousands of pink flowering trees pop with color. While many look forward to the display each spring, they may not know the story behind the trees.
Portions of South Prince Street, West Lake Avenue, South Sterne Parkway and several other streets south of downtown are especially vibrant. These streets form the Littleton Crabapple Route, which is the result of a city beautification program led by former Mayor Vaughn Gardinier in the 1970s.
Today, the former mayor’s family members, the city and other community members maintain the trees. In doing so, they aim to preserve history and appreciate the legacy.
“You may not know this, but all that beauty that you’ve looked at over the last two weeks was a plan,” Tom Gardinier, Vaughn’ son, said. “It was intentional.”
The city council back then appropriated funds to plant the trees along streets and encouraged homeowners to plant them in their yards, according to the Littleton Crabapple Route, Inc., a nonprofit organization that exists to promote the appreciation of and care for the trees.
Over the years, the group has planted more trees and worked with the city to coordinate their care. Now, about 7,000 trees bloom in Littleton each spring, said Tom, who serves as the organization’s president.
“In (my father’s) travels throughout his youth and his young adulthood, he found certain cities that really impressed him (with) things like the cherry blossoms in D.C. or the magnolias down south,” Tom said. “He just felt like that would make Littleton unique.”
Larry Borger, who said he started the organization as a way to raise money to support the trees, said Vaughn’s initiative to plant the trees shows the history of Littleton’s “can-do attitude.”
City Forester Mary Danser said the crabapple tree route can be made ecologically stronger by adding more types of flowering trees to the area. With so many trees of the same species, the route is currently in a vulnerable position, she said.
“In natural sciences, it’s very clear that diversity is really important,” she said. “The city of Littleton, unfortunately, is going to be very familiar with the term ‘monoculture,’ given our main street trees.”
A monoculture is when a given area has a single plant species. Last spring, the city had to remove about 80% of the trees on Main Street because of a disease that impacted honey locust trees. The city, along with much of the state, is also dealing with emerald ash borer, an insect that destroys ash trees.
When there are more diverse species, Danser said, there is less risk of a whole area of plants being wiped out by a pest or disease. Diversity of species is also better for pollinators and wildlife, she said.
To improve the diversity of the crabapple route, Danser said the city is going to sell discounted flowering trees to property owners along the route, probably starting in 2025.
Danser said the route will likely be renamed to the “Historic Crabapple Route” to honor the history and legacy of the area, but in practice, it will be a flowering tree route with different kinds of trees. Tom said the organization is planning to buy new signs to mark the route with this new name.
Beyond bringing beauty to the community, Tom said he and his family see the route as a way to honor their father and inspire others to serve their community like he and others have over the years. On top of serving as the mayor, Vaughn helped start Hudson Gardens and the Town Hall Arts Center, Tom said.
“As a community, we forget that all of this stuff didn’t just pop up out of nowhere,” he said, highlighting the community leadership of his father and others. “If we want to make our community better, we have to be like them … If we honor the people that did the work back then, we’re more likely to have people do the work now.”
I often wondered and now I know there was a plan for all those crab apple trees. Like the expectation of the first snow before Halloween, so too do those beautiful pink crab apple blooms seem to predict a final spring snow. While all that heavy wet snow, so full of moisture, may be a perfect elixir for lawns and other waking shrubs and flowers, it’s sad knowing those delicate pink blooms will suffer. Gorgeous and sadly too short lived, they hand off their beauty to the lilacs waiting to start their own spring show. Springtime in the Rockies is a marvelous time indeed.