Who attacked the trees? Visitors to Halifax’s public gardens are baffled two years after the crime

HALIFAX — Many of the trees in a Victorian-era public garden in downtown Halifax that were attacked nearly two years ago are showing remarkable signs of recovery, while visitors to the urban oasis still puzzle over the mysterious, unsolved crime.

In the summer of 2022, sometime between July 25 and 26, a person or group climbed over the fence of the Halifax Public Gardens and chopped and girdle the bark around about 30 trees – a method of killing trees without cutting them down. The affected trees, all between 50 and 250 years old, were attacked with what looked like a hatchet or small axe.

The Ringel incident left a lasting mark on the community and is still a topic of conversation among tree lovers who, almost two years later, are still baffled by the vandalism.

“It’s just horrible,” Lois McVannel, a Halifax woman who often visits the gardens, said in an interview Tuesday. “And the biggest question is, what was the point? What was the statement they were making?”

She and her friends make sure to check out the damaged trees when they walk through the park. Pointing to a 200-year-old, massive weeping beech that was heavily girdle, she said, “I always want to see how that tree develops.”

“Sometimes we go and sit next to her. Just to be with her,” she said of the beech tree.

“And it looks quite good. They’ve taken good care of it and it seems to be scabbling… So I’m very happy that the public gardens and the public in general have taken this so seriously.”

Stan Kochanoff, an arborist with nearly 50 years of experience caring for girdling trees in gardens, says he is hopeful the trees are healing because he sees signs of callus on their bark and because the trees are “budding,” meaning they have put on leaves or flowers this spring.

“Even the worst, those who were really under severe pressure, have recovered, which is very encouraging,” Kochanoff said in a recent interview.

“This keratinization is like a bridge between open areas. It allows the cambium layer, the growth layer, to turn around and heal the wound.”

While Kochanoff is optimistic about the trees’ recovery and the ongoing work to heal them, he still wonders who is behind the ringing.

“Whoever it was knew what he was doing. And he obviously knew which trees to attack… he knew the valuable trees,” he said, noting that a plane tree and the giant weeping beech, both about 200 years old, suffered significant damage.

“Maybe one day someone will hear someone bragging about it in a bar and report them.”

Kochanoff said he believes the 2022 tree attacks are unique in North America. “I brought it up to some of my colleagues in the American Society of Consulting Arborists to see if they had ever experienced anything like this before, and no one had ever heard of anything like it,” he said.

Judith Cabrita, chair of the Friends of the Public Gardens community group, says people who visit the information center regularly “ask how the trees are doing and lament that it happened.”

“Like many others, we don’t walk through the gardens without looking at the trees and seeing how they are doing,” she said. Visitors to the gardens told volunteers at the information center that they were baffled by the crime and could not comprehend who would destroy such a special place, Cabrita said.

In 2022, the Friends of the Public Gardens and the chairman of their foundation offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. The offer was valid until December 30, 2022, but no leads materialized and Halifax Regional Police closed their investigation in January 2023.

Officer Ann Giffin said in an email that there was no evidence to identify a suspect in connection with the tree-ringing incident, adding that police would reopen the file if new information came to light.

Since the vandalism, security in the gardens has been increased at night and cameras have been installed.

The Halifax Regional Municipality declined to make staff available for interviews and said in an emailed statement that “most damaged trees have continued to sprout as expected this year, although we are beginning to lose some of the more vandalized specimens.”

“It may take several years for the full extent of the damage to become apparent as the trees continue to grow,” the statement said.

A municipality spokesman later said that two small trees had been removed and two mature trees had not grown any leaves this year.

Kochanoff said it will take some time to determine the fate of the trees, but next year will tell.

“I think we’ll really know next year, year three. If they all sprout and look healthy, we’ve won the battle,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2024.

Lyndsay Armstrong, The Canadian Press