Photo by julia.m

We love D.C.’s ample tree canopy, but we really hate its plentiful ginkgo trees. Thankfully, the city is again doing something to spare us from the smell of what some have referred to as the trees’ foul-smelling “poop berries.”

Yesterday the D.C. Department of Transportation’s Urban Forestry Administration started its annual spraying of female ginkgo trees, in which a mild pesticide is used to halt the development of their stinky berries. According to a map of where the offending trees are located, DDOT’s work will start with wards 1, 2 and 6 and expand to other sites.

The spraying is happening some two weeks earlier than last year, courtesy of the unseasonably warm weather that has sped up the flowering process of just about every tree and bush out there.