Last October, Ground Services at Wayne State University discovered an infestation of bark beetles on trees in Gullen Mall. 

Donna Reincke, Associate Director of Grounds for Wayne State University, explains how these tiny insects caused great harm. 

“They burrow into the tree trunks and leave these tiny little holes, maybe about the size of a pencil eraser. With that, the insect infestation introduced a fungus [blue stain fungus] into the tree, which stopped the tree from being able to take up water, and killed a couple of the trees.” 

The fungus spread to surrounding trees and left them too damaged to save.

Reincke says sadly, they had to remove 11 pine trees in Gullen Mall, as dead trees pose a major safety risk.

“We do remove them to avoid any accidents from happening, and it’s just a safety issue with the risk of it falling, and dead branches falling down,” explains Reincke. 

Expanding campus tree canopy​

With the help of many volunteers from The Greening of Detroit and Wayne State University’s Office of Sustainability, Reincke is happy to share that they replanted 30 trees in the same area. 

Reincke says, “even though the trees are smaller than the ones that were removed, we wanted to make sure we still did right by planting trees that could fill in the canopy, and it was a really fun, successful event.”

In addition to Gullen Mall, Reincke stated they planted 71 trees at Wayne State University’s athletic complex, on the corner of Warren Avenue and Trumbull Street. 

Over these two spaces, they planted Hackberry, Kentucky Coffee ‘Decaf’, Bald Cypress, ‘Autumn Splendor’ Buckeye, Allegheny Serviceberry, London Plane, Blackgum, Tulip Tree, Basswood, Accolade Cherry, and Swamp White Oak. 

Wayne State University’s Ground Services and Office of Sustainability are partnering up again to host a tree planting event for Arbor Day, April 24th, 2026.

For more details, visit Wayne State University’s Get Involved page.