After a stormy winter, early spring in Herne Hill brought perfect growing weather. In the last two weeks of March our young trees had just the start they needed for that vital growth surge: a mix of warm and sunny weather with the odd cloudy and wet day. The Yoshino cherry blossom burst out right on cue on March 15, although within a fortnight the cold winds and heavy rains of early April had blown it away.
A Yoshino milestone
The Yoshinos (Prunus x yedosensis) have become a real signature tree for Herne Hill since first making an appearance on Winterbrook Road in November 2006. You can see them now in large numbers on Stradella Road too, like the tree below at no. 5, but also in ones and twos on side streets like Hollingbourne Road, where their pretty, deep green summer leaves, their striking autumn colours and their arching winter branches provide interest all year round.
On the first day of April, after 16 years' development, the now famous Winterbrook Yoshino avenue was finally completed as 10 tiny saplings filled the remaining gaps. The little two-year-old trees, donated through Japan's Sakura Cherry Project, are already in leaf and looking promising. Very young trees like this are much quicker to establish themselves than older ones, but they're usually considered too vulnerable for the city streets.
Here's a picture of Ronnie, from the council's planting contractor CSG Usher’s, popping one of the Yoshinos into its planting hole on Winterbrook, and next to it one of his batch already staked, tied and caged. Its older cousins are the background.
The third photo, taken five days later, shows Ionut, also from Usher’s, at the corner of Red Post Hill and Sunray Avenue where he and his colleague Ryan planted six new limes in the grounds of the Carterscroft and Cassinghurst estates. Four are glossy-leaved Caucasian limes (Tilia × euchlora) while the other two are native common limes (Tilia x europaea), which can eventually grow up to 46 metres in height - unless of course they're pollarded, like most of the limes in the area.
Watering
Now that we've had a warm, sunny and dry long Easter weekend, please don't forget to water any trees planted on your street this current season and in 2020-21. There's a guide to how often and how much to water on this page, which also explains how to use the green Treegator watering bags.
Southwark council has a watering schedule agreed with its tree maintenance contractors, but remember that Herne Hill Tree Watch volunteers are there to provide vital back-up when the weather is especially hot and dry - or in case the watering lorry doesn't make it.
In the first and second years after planting it's supposed to come round twice a month in April and May, four times a month during June, July and August, and once in September. In the third year the timetable is the same except that the April rota is reduced to one visit only.
Please send us your feedback on how the contractors are performing. Let us know if you see their watering teams out on your street and check the stakes around the new trees. They’re expected to write the date there every time they visit.
Planting progress
As well as the 10 Winterbrook Yoshinos and the six limes at Carterscroft and Cassinghurst, two further new trees have appeared in the past month. One is a birch opposite the flats at 76-86 Elmwood Road. It replaced a London plane (Platanus x hispanica) that was planted just a few months earlier but deemed unsuitable for the site since it was too close to the rear of 1 Beckwith Road.
Judging by the brownish bark, this isn't a white Himalayan birch (Betula utilis Jacquemontii), like so many that have sprung up in Herne Hill in the last 10 or so years, or a native silver birch (Betula pendula).
Without a label it's hard to be certain exactly which species it is - Southwark plants at least eight - but our best guess is a downy birch (Betula pubescens), which is also native to Britain. There's another at 26 Elfindale Road.
To make a birch ID with more certainty you need to have good eyesight and the patience to look closely at the full-size leaves and count the veins. The downy birch has five pairs of veins, the silver birch six and the Himalayan birch 7-9. Also the leaf shoot on the downy birch will be covered in soft white hairs.
The picture shows a male catkin (the large hanging one) and two females (the little upright ones). Although all birches carry both male and the female flowers they can't self-pollinate. The female needs pollen from a different tree.
The final newcomer is a Rebona elm (Ulmus Rebona), a disease-resistant American hybrid elm planted outside Pynnersmead on Herne Hill to replace the old sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) that was knocked down by Storm Eunice in February. It's the second Rebona in the neighbourhood, matching the recent one outside the Elmwood Road flats.
Still waiting
That leaves another 19 trees still to be planted from the council's official schedule for 2021-22, plus three more that have already been held over for a year. We're hoping that all these 22 outstanding commitments, which you can see on the website here, should be fulfilled by the end of this month. The planting season officially ended on March 31.
The three trees that were overlooked in 2021 are:
a Himalayan birch earmarked for the top of Elfindale, along the side of the bar at 77 Herne Hill
two fruit trees for the garden square between nos. 49 and 71 Sunray Avenue.
There's already a healthy-looking quince (Cydonia oblonga) on the square, planted last year, and we're expecting an interesting white mulberry (Morus alba) and a third type of fruit tree. Edible fruit is already quite a theme in this part of the Sunray Estate. A short distance down the road, towards St Faith's, the pretty little square in front of nos. 81-111 has four apple trees behind the hedge, covered in charming pink and white blossom as we write.
More losses
As we wait for the remaining saplings, the list of trees that have died recently keeps growing. The council is obliged to replace every loss so we'll press them to do this as soon as possible.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the 12 trees that need replacing. The most recent cases are at the top of the list.
65-67 Holmdene Avenue: Silver birch (Betula pendula), severely pollarded in October 2021. No sign of leaf emergence in April 2022.
Opposite 105 Stradella Road: Southern nettle tree (Celtis australis), in poor condition since autumn 2021, its stem leaning and loose in its socket following Storm Eunice on 18 February 2022. No sign of buds or leaf emergence in April 2022
57-59 Beckwith Rd: London plane (Platanus x hispanica), planted 2021, watered regularly. No sign of buds or leaf emergence.
35-37 Elfindale Road: Chanticleer pear (Pyrus calleryana Chanticleer), felled March-April 2022 for reasons of insurance mitigation.
1 Elfindale Road: Purple leaved plum (Prunus cerasifera Pissardii), brought down in Storm Eunice.
81 Ruskin Walk: Purple leaved plum (Prunus cerasifera Pissardii), brought down in Storm Eunice.
47/49 Elmwood Road: Silver birch (Betula pendula), brought down in Storm Eunice.
25 Herne Hill: London plane (Platanus x hispanica), tree planted 3 November 2021, vandalised and removed. Lambeth will replace it.
45 Half Moon Lane: American sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), felled 27 September 2021 following storm damage.
Elmwood Road, at side of 20 Wyneham Road: Himalayan birch (Betula utilis jacquemontii), planted February/March 2020, felled August 2021.
101 Herne Hill: London plane (Platanus x hispanica), felled February 2021, stump ground out, pit paved over. Lambeth will replace it.
83 Casino Avenue: Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), can't be replanted at its current site (hedge). Casino residents would like a new location outside no. 112, at the junction with Red Post Hill.
Spring blossom
The familiar double pink flowers of the big Kanzan Japanese cherries (Prunus Kanzan) of Burbage Road and Stradella Road seem if anything brighter, jollier and plumper in 2022 than usual, like this handsome tree outside 23 Burbage.
Our native wild cherries aren't quite as attention-grabbing as that, but if you're looking for subtlety and delicacy the double-flowered white cherry (Prunus avium Plena) is outstanding. Quite a few have appeared in recent years, including this youngster, planted just last year at 19 Elfindale Road and now flowering beautifully. There are four others nearby, at 2 Elfindale, 44 Ruskin Walk, 27 Hollingbourne Road and 45/47 Hollingbourne, all dating from 2019.
Wild cherries also make up four of the tallest trees on Burbage Road. The two veterans by the railway bridge are double-flowered; the two near the doctor's surgery are single.
Finally, we don’t often sing the praises of the common pear (Pyrus communis). It’s not an attractive tree by any standards, it’s hard to manage, the leaves have almost no autumn colour except dark brown, the inedible fruit makes a slippery mess on the pavement for weeks in late summer and the flowers don’t match up to its family rival, the more frequently seen Chanticleer pear (Pyrus calleryana Chanticleer).
This year, though, the common pear blossom was lovely: fat, creamy clusters that persisted for several weeks. It was a much better show than the Chanticleers could manage, but there is a downside: more blossom in the spring means more pears to tread on in a few months’ time. The tree pictured here is on Warmington Road, but there are others on Burbage.
The middle photo shows the third kind of pear grown in Herne Hill, the Redspire (Pyrus calleryana Redspire). It's got a thick, glossy crown of dark green leaves, an upright habit, powerful limbs, bright autumn colours and, best of all for the street cleaners, it only produces tiny brown fruits. The birds love them and the humans barely notice them.
This Redspire is on Wyneham Road, next to the door to 39b Beckwith Road. There's another a few yards along and two more on Stradella, at nos. 4 and 6. All of these have unusual spiral bark, a bit like a barley sugar twist on a Victorian table leg. So do two very tall pear trees on Frankurt Road, at 31 and 37, although those look like Chanticleers rather than Redspires.
Spring fruit
You don't often associate springtime with fruit, but here are a couple of local trees that are heaving with it. Of course this is fruit in its strict botanical sense: seed-bearing structures that appear after the tree has flowered, not something sweet and fleshy that you can bite into.
The first of this pair is another disease-resistant elm, the Ulmus 'Sapporo Autumn Gold' in front of the flats at nos. 76-86 Elmwood. You can just about make it out in the background of the earlier picture of the little birch tree over the road, looking like it's covered in fresh green leaves.
Those 'leaves' are misleading though: they're actually what's known as samaras, papery winged fruit like tiny round kites that will eventually blow away and disperse the single seed within. Zoom in on the photo to get a better look. The inconspicuous red-brown Sapporo flowers lasted only a very short time before they transformed into these fruits, and when the real elm leaves come out soon they'll partly conceal the samaras.
Below is another bunch of samaras, this time on a Trident maple (Acer Buergerianum) outside 48 Stradella Road, a species that's popular for bonsai. These very colourful fruits are paired so every samara has two wings, each carrying one seed. When they fall they twirl like little helicopters, as you'll know if you've ever spotted the samaras dropping from a big sycamore. The small, dull, yellow-green Trident maple flowers appear in March but are easy to miss.
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