Winter is normally a quiet time for street trees, but we’ve got some bits of news that we wanted to share with you before spring comes our way.
New trees coming soon
We have a list of trees that Southwark council is planning to plant in Herne Hill before the end of March 2020. Here they are:
114 and 115 Casino Avenue – two aspens (Populus tremula), one either side of the junction with Red Post Hill
6 Elfindale Road – cherry (Prunus Sunset Boulevard)
Elfindale Road, between Herne Hill and no. 2 - cherry (Prunus Sunset Boulevard)
Elmwood Road (locations to be confirmed) – two silver birches (Betula pendula)
Hollingbourne Road, at the corner of Warmington Road - Himalayan birch (Betula jacquemontii)
25 Hollingbourne Road – Yoshino cherry (Prunus x yedoensis)
Holmdene Avenue, at the corner of Half Moon Lane – tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
38/40 Holmdene Avenue - Japanese Pagoda Tree (Sophora)
These will all need watering when the weather gets hotter and drier, so keep an eye out for them.
New trees for next winter
Paul Millington and Jeff Segal, the organisers of Herne Hill Tree Watch, gave a brief presentation of our bid for new street trees at the council meeting on January 22nd. You'll recall that we applied for funding under Southwark's Cleaner Greener Safer scheme to plant a total of 26 trees in our neighbourhood during winter 2020/21.
We'll find out whether our application has been approved when the ward councillors meet again at 7pm on February 25th, again at Charter School. Thanks to those of you who came along to support us at the last meeting. It's likely that our proposal will be scaled down, but in any case Southwark has big plans for tree planting across the borough which could benefit our area.
We met with Julian Fowgies, the council's arboricultural services manager, Ernst Erasmus, the tree officer for the south of the borough, and Phil Barwell, a senior arboricultural officer, a couple of weeks ago to talk about ways that Herne Hill Tree Watch can work with them.
They told us that if their own bid for capital funding is approved they're looking at planting 2,000 new street trees borough-wide in the next year or so, with priority given to sites where trees have been removed in the past.
We were told that Southwark Council have now made a firm commitment to replace any street trees that are lost. Apparently the previous promise was only to use their best endeavours to replace trees taken down, which we all know didn’t always happen, and now the new planting is to try to redress the backlog
Support for Herne Hill Tree Watch
The tree department are now officially giving our group their support. We've been promised training in tree maintenance by May and we'll also be able to shadow tree officers on their rounds. They're going to provide us with branded hi-vis jackets for when we're out doing jobs like pruning, and can give us some money for equipment too. We'll tell you the training dates as soon as we hear. Let us know if you'd like to take part.
Paul and Jeff kicked off our volunteer maintenance work last week with a couple of hours spent removing the cages and stakes from three apple trees that no longer needed them and pruning off suckers and shoots around the base of the trunks. This was in the little garden square between nos. 81 and 111 Sunray Avenue. We used a couple of the stakes to protect the small Ginkgo in Sunray Gardens before any more damage is done to it.
Dead trees
The council is planning to cut down the handkerchief tree (Davidia involucrata) at the corner of Elmwood Road and Beckwith Road in the next few weeks. This was planted a couple of years ago but suffered from a lack of water and never thrived.
You might have noticed two trees on Half Moon Lane that will also need replacing: a dead birch outside no. 29 and a London plane that was recently been felled outside no. 37. There's evidence of rot in the stump of the plane.
There's a dead hawthorn on Frankfurt Road too, outside nos. 19-21. We've notified the council about this and many other trees in our area that need attention.
Developing the group
We're keen for Herne Hill Tree Watch to have a presence in every street in the neighbourhood, but one where we don't yet have any volunteers is Danecroft Road. If you know any tree lovers there who might want to get involved please let us know.
We could also do with street representatives for Half Moon Lane and Ruskin Walk, in case anyone is interested. Street reps are our main points of contact. They'll help organise volunteers for watering and other jobs and will talk to their neighbours about getting new trees and reporting any problems.
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