Trees in your street?

[housesparrow]

The government, apparently, thinks more should be planted.


The government says spending £4.2m on planting trees in towns and cities - particularly in deprived areas - will improve the quality of people's lives. Does foliage actually do this?



When I worked in local government we were always getting complaints that leaves were dropping in someone's garden, that they were blocking light - insurance "warning" letters about roots damaging foundations were commonplace.

We once even had a letter from a man claiming compensation because his car had been parked under a lime tree, and falling sticky bits had damaged the paintwork (we didn't pay)

So should we invest in trees or - as one critic in the article comments - spend the money on bricks and mortar instead?

[riotgrrl]

I like the trees in the square outside my house. Even though I'm on the top floor, it's like living in the jungle in summer when all I can see out my window is treetops with squirrels and magpies jumping around in them. This time of year it's pretty, winter-nude trees covered in snow.

Trees, yes.

[trubble]

Yes to trees.

Not bothered with plants in the office but yes to trees in the avenue.

[aubrey]

We have a good tree just outside our block; the cats like to see the birds that sit in it.

There used to be a bloke under us who reckoned that this tree cost his so much a year in electric bills. Maybe; but I don't know how he knew. It's a big old tree and I'm sure it must have been here before him.

[jean]

Everything in moderation. Trees do damage foundations, and that's bad - but I don't really care about the paintwork on people's cars.

And I don't think anyone should be prevented from removing from a garden or allotment self-seeded sycamores that appeared there during a period of neglect.

[Patrick]

Oooh! Where have they found £4.2m to plant trees I wonder? Sounds like another diversion tactic!

They'll probably be the wrong type of tree whatever they plant.

[everso]

Trees are the very devil if they're planted too near the house. You have to be careful, too, of cutting them down, especially in our area which is predominantly clay. You get something called clay heave (I'm married to a chartered surveyor, btw) which happens when clay expands because its able to absorb more water than before.

We used to have an Ailanthus tree in our garden (tree of heaven). It was the messiest tree ever, but had a protection order on it so we couldn't chop it down. However, during the 1987 hurricane it blew over, so for us something good came out of the storm.

[housesparrow]

Preservation Orders on garden trees are controversial; a council that whacks them on everything above roof level does nothing to encourage people to plant them in the first place.

An arboriculturalist I worked with in local government privately told me he thought big trees had no place in a modern housing estate. He would have nothing larger than a big shrub in his own (albeit small) garden.

There are however some small trees that are very pretty.

[Patrick]

Nearly every single tree (I surmise) in Tunbridge Wells has a preservation order on it. The planning lists each week are filled with more applications for altered crowns than the dentist gets!

Of course, this doesn't stop the council themselves pulling up any tree they want without consulting anyone. One tree lined avenue was disrupted once by having a tree pulled out simply to make way for a CCTV camera. There were half a dozen other trees in it's line of sight anyway so just pulling one wouldn't make a difference! Besides which - why not position the camera 'better' in the first place. That would have been too difficult. Another Biggie by them was ripping out some (fairly) historical Lime Trees in the Pantiles - they reckoned they weren't well - at least one independent tree expert wrote in to the paper disputing this - but up they were pulled anyway!

My own council does it too - but they don't have mass tree protection like TW had. There is a fine avenue of trees along the top road from me - which could only have been part of a driveway for the big house in the park at the end. One surviving line of these is being slowly suffocated under a layer of too closely laid tarmac. So presumably they're just hoping to kill them off one by one. Pity, as they have an historic significance to the layout of the area before all the boring 1930 semis were built!

There will be corporate objections to some of these new plantings. Any company with cables in the area. The irony being that it has been the cable companies as they ripped up the pavements of Britain and sliced through the roots of many a tree in the process who have contributed to the killing off of thousands of trees as it is! They would argue that snipping off a few roots makes little difference to a tree. An expert has said that it simply leads to a long slow death - by which time people will have forgotten who might have caused it.

Short story in a book I know (but forget which at the moment) tells of a man who discovered - as he went about cutting wood for logs - that he could hear trees scream with pain when he tried to cut them down.

[housesparrow]

Dec 8, 2010 10:13:10 GMT Patrick said:

. There is a fine avenue of trees along the top road from me - which could only have been part of a driveway for the big house in the park at the end. One surviving line of these is being slowly suffocated under a layer of too closely laid tarmac. So presumably they're just hoping to kill them off one by one. Pity, as they have an historic significance to the layout of the area before all the boring 1930 semis were built!

The daft thing is that anyone who removes a tree which is dead, dying or dangerous has a duty to replant it. Apparently the courts haven't decided whether this applies to trees that blow down.

So if they want to escape a replanting notice they will have to wait until Mother Nature brings them down of her own accord. When the avenue dies, this will add some exitement to the lives of their visitors.

www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/tposguide.pdf

So the only way to escape a replanting notice

[aubrey]

Short story in a book I know (but forget which at the moment) tells of a man who discovered - as he went about cutting wood for logs - that he could hear trees scream with pain when he tried to cut them down.

I read something like that in a book of horror stories in the 70s. Not Pan, but I think something like. My theory is that if trees could feel pain they would be able to move. There's not much point otherwise.

[swl]

I think planting trees should always be encouraged. They brighten up drab, concrete cities and remind us there's more to life than hustle & bustle.

They give good hug too.

[Patrick]

Dec 8, 2010 16:50:55 GMT aubrey said:

I read something like that in a book of horror stories in the 70s. Not Pan, but I think something like. My theory is that if trees could feel pain they would be able to move. There's not much point otherwise.

I've been looking for it but can't find it. I can see the story, the font it was written in but I just can't remember which one it is!