New trees to improve our canopy

Showing a line of new trees planted towards the end of Livingstone Road. From nothing to leafy will be really nice. I also love that the owners of the two trees on the left made modifications to their fence to allow them to keep the trees.  

I am impressed to see so many newly planted street trees being planted to actually fill in streets, where previously the number of street trees remained stationary for many years.

It looks good to see street trees planted closer together.  Unless they are badly or over-pruned, the density of planting will also create decent shade once these trees grow larger & shade is much needed on our streets.

Livingstone Road Marrickville South is not one of the streets that I felt was desperately short of street trees. While I consider there are very few streets in the overall percentage in our area that don’t need at least one tree, Livingstone Road has a good number of taller trees & a relatedly good canopy when compared with other streets.  Therefore, I was really pleased to see that the Inner West Council has planted new street trees much closer together, every 5-7 metres or so depending on conditions like driveways.

I was also pleased to find a tag stapled to a stake that told me these new trees are Luscious® Tristaniopsis laurina.

This tree is an Australian native that is similar in appearance to a Magnolia, which is a very popular tree, so people should like it.  It grows to 7–12 metres tall & 5 metres wide at maturity, though this cannot be taken as a given due to growing conditions & importantly, pruning practices.

The leaves are large dark green & shiny with red or copper-coloured new growth.   The bark is a port wine colour that peels to reveal a cream colour.   Yellow sweetly perfumed flowers are produced in summer attracting bees, butterflies & other insects.

It seems that wherever I drive I see new trees & this is a change from previous years when I started being observant of these things.  Thank you Council.

Further down Livingstone Road. What a positive impact these will make when grown.

Ausgrid commits to reduce street tree pruning requirements

Most of the canopy is on the ground.

Great news for our street tree & our streetscapes.  Great news also for the wildlife who have barely any habitat as it is.

A statement from the Inner West Council said Mr Trevor Armstrong, CEO of Ausgrid power company, has made a commitment to the Council & therefore the whole community, “that contractors will reduce the cutback they are carrying out on local street trees following strong advocacy from Council and the community.” See – http://bit.ly/2dq10wk

After meeting with the Inner West Council, Ausgrid has said that “the maximum trimming for regrowth in the future will be 0.5 metres.”   Ausgrid’s current guidelines are for a “clearance of 1 metre around bare low voltage powerlines.”

The Inner West Council also resolved not to retain “TreeServe, the company responsible for the excessive pruning,” on their contractors list.  Let’s hope that the next contractors do a better job pruning our street trees.

I want to thank Ausgrid for taking this issue seriously & making the changes.   I also thank the Inner West Council for taking this issue to Ausgrid & pursuing the protection of our street trees.  Our urban forest is extremely important to most in the community & the look of butchered street trees does have a negative impact on us.

Two branches left after pruning by Ausgrid in 2014.