In Kyiv, part of the will of Roman Ratushny was fulfilled: a 200-year-old mulberry tree was cured

Public figure and military officer Roman Ratushny, who died at the front in June 2022, bequeathed from his combat pay to support the House-Museum of Taras Shevchenko. In particular, he wanted to preserve a two-hundred-year-old mulberry tree.

The House-Museum of Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv writes about this on Facebook.

The treatment of the tree was carried out by Volodymyr Vetrogradskyi, an arborist who has saved almost two thousand trees in Ukraine for 25 years. Mulberry treatment included:

• cleaning the trunk from rotten and half-destroyed parts;

• treatment for fungal infection;

• trunk strengthening;

• 7-stage filling with long-term synthetic fillers.

While working with the tree, Volodymyr Vetrogradsky cleaned the trunk of: concrete-cement seals, bricks, lime mixture, which inhibited the healing of the tree, and also pulled out 12 nails. The museum noted that for the first time in the 200-year history of the mulberry tree, it underwent a structured pruning of the tops of the tiers: excess branches were removed, the crown received space for better lighting.

What , will we still taste sweet mulberries in 700 years? – writes the House-Museum of Taras Shevchenko.

In particular, a complex procedure related to the release of the steel wire screed was carried out., to preserve all the living parts of the tree's bark (once the screed saved the two main trunks from splitting, but over the years it led to partial atrophy of the bark).

The arborist created a special inner-trunk capsule for the tree's secondary roots that grew above ground level. The specialist preserved the mulberry's external ecosystem as much as possible and carried out deep fertilizing of the root system.

In 1846, the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko lived in a hut, which is now a literary memorial building-museum, at that time a tree “caught” the artist. In 2010, the mulberry received the status of a botanical monument of nature.

On June 9, 2022, near Izyum, Kharkiv Oblast, a 24-year-old activist, journalist, soldier of the 93rd OMBr “Kholodny Yar”, a leader, died NGO “Protect Protasiv Yar”, Roman Ratushny. A street in the capital was renamed in his honor.

Roman Ratushny