Greening Calvert Street Marrickville

Lovely to see street trees planted so closely together

Concrete removed and new street trees in Calvert Street.  You can see two other new trees across the road.

Calvert Street Marrickville would be considered a street that has “enough” street trees when comparing with many other streets in the former Marrickville LGA.   Therefore, I was really happy to drive down this street earlier this week & see lots of substantial-sized newly planted street trees.  I was with a friend who is an Arborist & between us there were lots of exclamations like “ooohs,” “wow” & “look at that.”   Being keen on trees makes one get excited by things like this.  🙂

Today I went back on my bicycle to have a closer look & was pleased with what I saw.   Inner West Council has depaved sections of the footpath on both sides of the street & planted street trees in places where there were none for at least two decades, but likely much longer.

Council planted 27-28 new trees to fill in gaps & to add in places where they tend to leave empty.

Calvert Street looks so much better for these new trees.  In 7-10 years, the residents will be really benefiting from the greening of their street.

The community will also benefit as Calvert Street will be much more pleasant for pedestrians.   Being a street off ‘Town Centre,’ plenty of people walk this street to get to & from the shops.

New street tree plantings in Calvert Street have a history of being vandalised, so I am very pleased that Council did not capitulate to the vandal & continued to plant street trees.  None of the new trees have been vandalised that I could see, so perhaps the vandal has given up, got educated, developed a social conscience or moved on.  Any of these is a win for the community.

There seems to be a change this year in where trees are being planted & with the density of planting, which I think is wonderful.

If the Inner West Council’s plan is to plant all our streets like this our urban forest canopy will increase & so will this community’s health & quality of life.   There will be less respiratory diseases, such as asthma & less heart disease with fatal heart attack.

Trees help lower stress & help depressed people feel happier.  Trees also lower crime rates, lower noise pollution, act as a wind buffer & help catch stormwater.  Powerbills should drop significantly, as will the urban heat island effect.  Trees also sequester CO2 making them a vital component in mitigating climate change.

These are just some of the benefits trees provide for residents.  There is no doubt that trees make streets nicer & healthier places to live.  Shade is a valuable amenity these days.

New trees wherever there is a space.  Also depaving and plants added around the trees.  This always improves a streetscape.

Even adding more trees in areas where in the past, one was seen to be enough. Great to see so much concrete removed too.

 

 

Replacement trees for Calvert Street Marrickville

I’m happy to share that two replacement street trees, at least 2.2-metres tall, have been recently planted in Calvert Street Marrickville after the last saplings were vandalized.

It’s great to see that Marrickville Council persists in its tree-planting program in this street, despite the repeated efforts by the local tree vandal to damage young trees.   One day Calvert Street is going to look green & leafy.  I last wrote about this issue here – http://bit.ly/OAH2vX

2 bigger than usual street trees planted in Calvert Street Marrickville. Let’s hope these trees are left alone.

Calvert Street tree vandal strikes again

The Calvert Street tree vandal strikes again halving the size of 2 newly planted street trees along this section of the street.  Street trees are sorely needed here to soften this area.

Bad news –  2 new street trees located on Calvert Street outside 39 Gladstone Street have been snapped in half.  All the other street trees that Marrickville Council have planted along Calvert Street a month ago or so are untouched & growing well, except for these two.

There is repeat tree vandalism in this neighbourhood. For this reason I would strongly encourage Council to think about doing a neighbourhood-wide educational campaign about the value of trees & the value of rate payers money that Council spends to plant trees. I last wrote about this street in June 2012 – https://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/a-boon-of-street-trees-for-calvert-street-marrickville/

Tree number 1

Tree number 2

A boon of street trees for Calvert Street Marrickville

New street tree planting along both sides of Calvert Street Marrickville

I received the following today –

“Just letting you know that Calvert street has now had about twenty new street trees planted in the last few weeks (following on from the removal of the large chinese hackberry in August 2011 – council’s vote to remove that tree was conditional upon planting new native street trees). So far they appear to be going well, although there has been one instance of vandalism with a couple of branches being snapped off one of the trees near Gladstone Street. It’s good to see that Council followed through on the promise to plant more trees on Cavert Street.” ~ Kimberley

For some history I last wrote about the trees of Calvert Street here – https://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/update-on-calvert-street-tree-planting/

So I went to have a look & Calvert Street looks really great.  Marrickville Council has planted 23 new street trees on both sides of the street & along its full length.  Most of the tree planting involved removing concrete, which is always a good thing.  All of the trees were planted in a hole covered in a tan-coloured pebble mix & level with the surrounding footpath.  This will prevent the tree holes becoming litter traps & is an attractive way to plant street trees in my opinion.

I felt so happy looking at all the new trees because you can easily see how leafy & green this street will be in a few years – that is if the tree vandal of the area leaves them alone.  Fingers crossed.  23 new trees is really obvious that a major transformation of the street is intended, so I hope this will send a strong message to the tree vandal.

Calvert Street is a busy thoroughfare from Victoria Road to the shops at Illawarra Road, so more trees will benefit a lot of people as well as create a favourable impression for people driving through Marrickville.

The trees will make the street healthier for the local residents as they help improve the air quality by removing air pollution & particulate matter from the traffic.  The trees will also make this a cooler streetscape.  With so much concrete Calvert Street was always a hot place.  Many residents here sit on their front porch so they too will benefit from a cooler greener street.  The many pedestrians will benefit, especially in summer.  Street trees also significantly improve property values so the residents should be very happy about this.

A discussion about how to tackle the issue of repeated tree vandalism in this area led to the following idea. Marrickville Council could send a multilingual letter to the residents of the area outlining the many benefits the new trees will provide to them, as well as the cost of planting (paid by residents’ rates) at this street.  This knowledge may be a powerful motivator for people to care for the trees, as well as stop the vandal from doing a repeat attack.

Thank you Marrickville Council for planting so many street trees & for greening the length of Calvert Street.  The trees have already made a big & positive difference.  I think Calvert Street will be a very pretty & pleasant street in a few years when the trees grow.

New trees were planted in holes left empty for years & the Gum tree planted to replace the Chinese Hackberry tree is growing well.  It all looks great.

New street trees were planted on both sides of Calvert Street at the Victoria Road end.

Update on Calvert Street tree planting

You may remember a Notice of Motion to remove a street tree in Calvert Street Marrickville  in the Council Meeting of 19 July 2011.  (https://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/report-from-the-gallery-–-19th-july-2011-–-part-2/ )

During the debate an amendment to the motion was organised by Clr Peters & supported by Clr Macri. The amendment was carried unanimously. From my post of the meeting,  “Clr Peters: ….that the opportunity be sought to plant trees in the street so we don’t plant in an ad hoc way & that these trees be planted at the same time. If you would be prepared to accept that, then I’ll agree to the tree being removed.  Clr Macri: issue also for pedestrians. The concrete slab is dangerous. I support Clr Peters. There is a number of planting opportunities in the street for trees. We could neaten up the street.” 

Well, the offending tree was removed, the concrete footpath replaced & a very nice new tree of a much bigger size than is usual was planted in its place.  This is great.  Unfortunately, the rest of the amendment to plant other street trees in this street was not carried through.  No other street trees were planted along this section of Calvert Street despite the presence of a number of holes where street trees used to be.

I despair. The planting season is long over so these holes in the footpath will continue to be ugly weed-filled litter traps & trip hazards in Calvert Street. Let’s hope Marrickville Council decides to plant the extra street trees during the next planting season & does not decide to fill in the tree holes like so many have been across the LGA.

Calvert Street Marrickville - the red dots show empty tree holes

Calvert Street Marrickville