Our weather is still very unpredictable, but the sun and rain in early July have given our street trees a welcome growth spurt. Look around and on many trees you’ll see fresh, bright, spring-like leaves at the tips of branches.
Tree trouble
It’s been a long time since we had a tree vandalised in Herne Hill but it looks like that’s what happened to a sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua 'Worplesdon') planted at 18/20 Holmdene Avenue in April. Paul found it snapped in half on July 6. We’ve asked the council if they can replace it.
You might have noticed that our new plantings this spring frequently came without their wire cages. The cages have turned up now, but this time they’re missing the slots for hoses and watering cans. We’ve been fixing that on one or two streets with our bolt cutters, so if you need us to do the same where you live do let us know.
We've also got a problem with tarmac paving being laid right up to trees on some streets, leaving no space at all for rainwater. It’s a real issue in Frankfurt Road, especially for the silver birch at nos. 11/13 and the Chanticleer pear at 31/33. But there are a few other places on Frankfurt where the tarmac is also a bit close for comfort: six on the odd-numbered side and two on even side.
The tree officers have instructed the Highways Department to create a square tree pit around the two named trees, but if you spot the same thing on your street please tell us.
Finally, if you’re a street leader and you don’t actually know all your volunteers just drop us a line. We have all the names, but we can’t pass them on without their express permission. So if you’re looking for extra watering hands, for instance, we can ask the volunteers to get in touch with you directly.
Winterbrook Yoshinos march on
Paul and Jeff had a very productive meeting on Winterbrook Road last month with Julian Fowgies, Southwark’s head of tree services; Ernst Erasmus, the arboricultural officer for our area; and David Langley, the man behind Winterbrook Road’s glorious Yoshino cherry (Prunus x yedoensis) avenue. David has been building up his urban forest year by year and is now only 10 trees short of filling the remaining gaps and completing the entire scheme.
Earlier this year he came across something called the Sakura Cherry Tree Project, which aims to plant 6,000 cherry blossom trees in the UK as a gift from Japanese businesses here. He successfully applied through the Japanese embassy for the 10 Yoshinos he needed and the bare-rooted trees - the exact same variety as the existing ones - will be delivered to Winterbrook in November.
David had to arrange for planting pits to be dug first, though, so we got in touch with Julian on his behalf to see if the council could help. The happy outcome of our meeting is that Southwark has agreed to fund the entire planting, including the 10 tree pits. We look forward to seeing the whole road lit up with spectacular Yoshino blossom in years to come.
Watering rewarded
Thanks to your efforts, our recently planted trees are doing really well. All it takes is a regular dousing with old-fashioned tap water. No fertilisers, no pesticides, nothing else.
Take a look at the cherry outside 47 Hollingbourne Road, for example, which street leader Sophie Plender has been watering faithfully since it was planted in 2019. It was a spindly little thing then, but now the crown is full and healthy and the trunk measures a very sturdy 11 inches (28 cm) in girth. After just two years it’s ready to say goodbye to its tree ties, stakes, cage and watering bag and stand on its own roots.
Meanwhile another of our street leaders hauls a massive 300 litres of water every fortnight to look after the young trees on his round. He's worked out a system for carrying an 80-litre water bag downhill in a wheelbarrow and syphoning it into his watering can once he gets to the bottom. As you can imagine, it's still really hard work.
We applaud the dedication of all our volunteers and we'd love to hear your stories from the street. Send us some pictures and a few words and we’ll put them in the newsletter. And if you need guidance on watering have a look on our watering page and our rainy days page.
Trees held over until winter
We’re still at the same total as last month (51) for new plantings completed in the 2020/21 season. It’s a very good number indeed but we’ve been concerned that 10 of the trees we’d been expecting haven’t materialised.
Two of them were Yoshinos for Winterbrook, both opposite the Baptist church, but they’re now included in the Sakura project plan so we’ll strike them off our list. That leaves eight still undelivered.
Four of those are unresolved as yet:
a Himalayan birch planned for the tree pit at the top end of Elfindale which remains empty
two fruit trees scheduled for the garden square outside 49-71 Sunray Avenue
and a tassel cherry (Prunus litigiosa) that was due to replace a plum tree felled two years ago at 36A Carver Road.
We’re talking to the council about each of these cases.
Two other trees have been held over to the planting season starting this coming November: a ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) opposite 8 Casino Avenue and a London plane (Platanus x hispanica) to replace the stump at the junction of Elmwood Road and Frankfurt Road.
The final two missing trees are on their way and will be planted this month on Red Post Hill, at nos. 42/44 and 56. A pair of Henry's limes (Tilia henryana) had originally been earmarked for these spots, but in the end they weren't available from the supplier. Instead the council is delivering two keakis (Zelkova serrata) on July 16.
The keaki, commonly known as the Japanese elm, is native to Japan, a member of the elm family and a newcomer to the area. It’s a great choice for the location and will add to the diversity we’re seeking in the local tree stock as the climate changes.
There’s a close relative, a Caucasian elm (Zelkova carpinifolia), that you're bound to have seen at the corner of Dulwich Village and the South Circular, opposite Dulwich College. You can read about it in the Dulwich Society Journal. When the piece was written it was an amazing 94 feet tall, but it had to be drastically pollarded in 2010 because it was leaning dangerously into the road.
Another, much younger Zelkova stands behind the post-and-chain fencing on the nearby green, sandwiched between a copper beech and an Indian bean tree.
Lime blossom
This has been a great season for lime blossom, especially the five unusual Mongolian limes (Tilia mongolica) on Burbage Road, still draped in a cloak of pale yellow flowers.
Like all limes, the flowers and fruit hang off long, pale green, skateboard-shaped bracts. These aren’t leaves and they aren’t flower petals, though in some species they can look like either. They’re always situated right next to the flowers themselves, which they protect and shelter, and in some cases they come in bright colours to attract pollinators.
Unlike other species of lime, the unique toothed leaves seem to be free of honeydew, the sticky substance produced by aphids that's notorious for dripping on to car roofs in the summertime.
Hornbeam fruit
One of the more unusual plantings this spring was a common hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) in Casino Avenue, in the garden square opposite no. 36. The hornbeam is native to southeast England, so it’s very much suited to this environment and good for wildlife. It’s related to birches and alders, and like them it bears catkins in the spring, but the fruit is extraordinary.
There are two mature hornbeams sharing the square with our youngster, and they’re decked with fruits that are hard to describe unless you use scientific language. The best thing is just to look at the photo.
The Reader’s Digest Encyclopedia of Garden Plants and Flowers makes a stab at a description in clear English: “pendulous clusters of winged nutlets”. The Woodland Trust calls them “papery, green winged fruits, known as samaras”. Basically the little hornbeam nuts are held underneath hanging green bracts, a bit like the Mongolian lime bracts but with more of them. And the bracts are arranged in a very attractive pattern like delicate little lanterns.
Better than reading about it, though, find a hornbeam and acquaint yourself with it. It’s a fine and lovely tree. There’s a meadow full of them alongside the Lovers Walk footpath, which runs between Gallery Road (entrance opposite Belair Park) and Dulwich Village (entrance south of Dulwich Picture Gallery).
If you catch the hornbeam bug take a trip out to Epping Forest in northeast London, which is principally an enormous hornbeam wood where thousands of trees were historically pollarded for firewood. You can see some great pictures of ancient hornbeams on the Woodland Trust website.
Horse chestnuts still in bloom
We’ve got a species of horse chestnuts locally that’s been happily producing spikes of white blossom throughout June, a month or two later than its relatives. It’s the Indian horse chestnut (Aesculus indica). The one pictured here is on Stradella Road, by the junction with Burbage Road, but there are others on Casino on the grass verges outside nos. 13, 18 and 33 and 59. Close up, you can see the tiny individual flowers on each ‘candle’ are brushed with red and yellow.
There are a few ways that you can easily tell the Indian type from the common horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), the one that produces the familiar conkers. First, they don’t have the same big sticky red-brown buds in spring. Second, their leaves are longer, narrower, paler and smoother, hanging on red stalks. Third, they flower two months later, from mid-June. And fourth, their fruits, which are just beginning to emerge as the blossoms drop off, are small, greenish-brown, almost pear-shaped and completely smooth-skinned - quite unlike the spiny green shells encasing the conkers we’re all familiar with.
There’s one more related tree on the streets of Herne Hill: Aesculus carnea, the red horse chestnut. It’s a hybrid between the common horse chestnut and an American species and the leaves are very similar to the European parent, wide, dark and rounded. The flowers, now gone, are red as the name suggests, and the fruits, already well developed, are shaped a bit like plums, with just a hint of tiny spines. There are two outside 53 Casino, one outside 31 Sunray Avenue and one planted this spring in the grounds of Carterscroft, at the foot of Red Post Hill opposite Sunray Gardens.
Both indica and carnea trees are more resistant to pests and diseases than the traditional common horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) - the conker producers. Several of these big trees have succumbed in recent years to sickness, decay and age. One on Dulwich Village, near the junction with Court Lane, fell into the burial ground just two months ago, while others had to be cut down recently at the edge of the Dulwich Orchard.
Our local horse chestnut hotspots are Calton Avenue in Dulwich Village and Melbourne Grove in East Dulwich. Both roads look glorious in May, lined with red and white trees.
Wrapping up the blossom report, look out for the gorgeous mauve flowers of the hibiscus (Hibiscus resi) at 31 Beckwith Road and the feathery pink and white blooms of the tiny Persian silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) at the corner of Half Moon Lane and Village Way. Both should be appearing soon.
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