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A few days later whilst commuting along the same road I noticed that the damaged tree was gone and had been replaced by another of the same species.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.