Street Tree Tragedy

Unity in street trees plays a big part, especially when a certain species has been planted along a road together to create a canopy that forms into one above the road.

I recently learnt this through an incident that happened in my local area.

There is this road near where I live called ‘Parkhill drive’ and ever since I was a kid I always enjoyed travelling in the car along it simply because of the trees. The young specimens that I now believe are the English Oak are planted all along both sides and along the middle of roughly 500m of this section of road.  I would say they have been there for around 15 years now so they’re of a decent size. The trees have now grown enough that during the year when the foliage is at its best the canopies of each individual tree joins with the tree next to it forming a continuous line of trees. The display of colour during autumn adds to this roads experience.

One day I was on my way home and noticed a few cars banked up along the road, (which was rather unusual for this particularly quite road), as I got closer it appeared to be a car accident. A woman had driven her car into one of the young Oak trees and completely pushed it over. The front of her car was a wreck and so was the trunk of the tree.

A few days later whilst commuting along the same road I noticed that the damaged tree was gone and had been replaced by another of the same species. However, the replacement tree was a lot younger than the others surrounding it and it appeared dwarfed by its older neighbours. It was then that I began to notice the large gap in the canopy of the trees and the break in what used to be beautiful line of trees. I still notice it to this day, and how important that one missing member is to this line of trees.

I believe street trees are majorly aesthetically important to the street or community they inhabit and provide an experience for those who choose to admire the uniqueness they can add to a street or road.

Layering Technique Trial

Over the past few months I have been undertaking an Associate Degree in Environmental Horticulture and one of my subjects is Horticulture Practise. In this subject we learn the basics to gardening and other horticultural skills. On one of the first days of the course each of the students plotted out a veggie patch in the field and was able to plant certain veggies. We were told to take care and maintain our plots, whether this was general maintenance like weeding or, even replacement of crop failures with other species.

After a few weeks I noticed one of my Grosse lisse tomato plants looking a little 'under the weather'. After consulting my teacher about my findings I decided to remove the tomatoes that were growing on the plant. This would hopefully return growth to the rest of the plant instead of using all its nutrients and strength into forming two lifeless tomatoes. The tomato plant has two main stems and the one which had the tomatoes on it has begun to deteriorate in health. I decided to perform a layer technique to the other much healthier stem in order to bring back some life to the plant and hopefully generate some adventitious growth of roots from the stem of the plant. To do this I bent down the healthier stem until it touch the soil and then bent the tip of the plant and foliage back up vertically. By maintaining contact with soil and covering the stem with a bit of some sought of substrate it will hopefully allow this stem to take over as the main part of the plant.

Two weeks later I have observed my trial at layering and the stem has gained a lot more foliage and the other stem it’s almost completely dead. I believe that it is possible to bring a struggling plant back to good heath through various techniques, like in my case, via layering.  

Local Parks’ Temporary Additions

One of my local parks is home to a few native eucalyptus trees that have grown into reasonably sized specimens. Living in the South-Eastern suburbs I often experience what one would call ‘Typical Melbourne weather’. After getting into a rhythm of comfy autumn days a storm appeared on our horizon and along with it, came strong winds, and as a result many of the large Eucalyptus trees were damaged and some even fell over. The sight of seeing such large, once thought ‘structurally sound’ trees now lying along the ground is rather a shock, however not everyone in my neighbourhood would see it as this.

A few weeks went by and two of the enormous trees still lay peacefully along the grass and made for an exciting and wonderful climbing object for many of the kids and families that visit the park.

For the next few weeks I noticed that whilst passing the park, it became normal to see a group of kids playing around and climbing on the large now dead structures. These new additions to the playground seemed rather popular as they brought more kids to this particular park than normal.

One afternoon I heard that the council had been down to assess the removal of the large trees to the disgust of the children. It had created an environment for the kids to muck about in and created a space of endless fun. I myself didn’t want to see the trees go so we made the effort to contact the local council in thought of the children who seemed to not leave it alone during the warm afternoons.

The council failed to contact us back and after a couple of days the two large trees were cut up into pieces and removed from the park. Not surprisingly the park is back to its old self and is merely half as busy as it was when the two Eucalyptus giants were around.

Gardens and Landscapes in my community

Located in the outer south Eastern suburbs of Melbourne means that the gardens and landscapes around my family and I are relatively newly constructed, and therefore have had minimal time to develop.
However, my family being first to develop in this area allowed time for my home and its garden to develop somewhat more than the other gardens in the area. In particular over the years my garden at home has grown into a warm and comforting landscape where I am able to feel comfortable and relaxed in my own environment. This relaxed feeling and sense of comfort is perhaps as a result of the newly developing gardens in the area and the shade and feeling of home that comes with creating you own garden.