Nuisance trees,shrubs, and plants

[robint]

Hi Gill

quote
A riverside left to grow wild sounds like a fantastic thing to me! Far better for wildlife! A neat and tidy riverbank is far less likely to be of value
unquote

Sorry to disagree, but I think your sentiments are misplaced here. Just picture a disused railway cutting which has become totally overgrown and shrouded with sycamore. In that place you might say it was nice (but not if a train had to use it)

Well the same applies to this river bank To which I referred. Its not at all attractive. The trees have become a menace, the ground covered in bracken and fly tipping rubbish. Its just careless vandalism in the pursuit of shareholder profits

I daresay councils arent keen on planting any street trees anymore because of maintenance costs.

Talking of Cherry trees, there is a spectacular road (Hartington) down by the Chiswick Bridge (turn right before crossing) which runs alongside the playing fields (Chiswick Fields). the whole street is line with mature japanese flowering cherry and in the springtime when they are flowering the view is spectacular. (The queen mum was rumour to favour a trip down there)

Sadly its rare to find new housing that invests in street trees and shrubs.

Im an arboriphile



This is the way a residential street should be - this was a 30's housing area I lived in (Stanmore) when I was young. The whole long street contained many different trees and shrubs

Another unusual tree, never seen since on Weston Drive Stanmore

An ornamental purple apple tree



You can see the tree in front of the house, it must be 75 years old now - looks tired - pink flowers then lots of large purple tastless apples resembling a bell pepper.

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by robint

Hi Gill

quote
A riverside left to grow wild sounds like a fantastic thing to me! Far better for wildlife! A neat and tidy riverbank is far less likely to be of value
unquote

Sorry to disagree, but I think your sentiments are misplaced here. Just picture a disused railway cutting which has become totally overgrown and shrouded with sycamore. In that place you might say it was nice (but not if a train had to use it)

Well the same applies to this river bank To which I referred. Its not at all attractive. The trees have become a menace, the ground covered in bracken and fly tipping rubbish. Its just careless vandalism in the pursuit of shareholder profits

On the whole I'm not really bothered if something looks 'attractive' - this is a massively subjective thing associated with tastes that vary between people and decades. I'm only really interested in preserving value to wildlife because wildlife is so easily pushed out of our living space to the ultimate detriment of everyone - even if it is only recognised by jo public in the empty bird boxes, fewer bumble bees or poor pollination of things.

And even a bunch of shady sycamore can be an absolute bonanza from breeding or migrating birds because they are again stuffed full of aphids quite late into the year. It would be better if they were oaks admittedly, but sycamores definately have their uses for wildlife and are often better than no trees at all (particularly in urban or sub-urban areas). The fly tipped litter isn't so brilliant and can be hazardous but is hardly the fault of the trees!

I remember surveying a house and garden once, one of a row of fairly typical urban mid-sized hoouses with gardens and I was absolutely amazed at the numbers and diversity of bird species I was picking up - far more than on previous similar jobs and this was because this one house was abandoned and the garden had become almost completely lost under bramble as tall as I am, which provided safe nest sites (cat proof) and an abundance of invertebrate and seed food which boosted the bird population for alll the gardens around. When that house was restored and the garden tidied the diversity of birds was reduced in the immediate area and numbers were down too.

I'm not saying that people should have to have gardens like that, of course not - but where it is a river bank / disused rail line - area of wasteground I think its absolutely fine - where else would the birds go? If it offends your eyes, look the other way. By all means enjoy a neat a tidy garden and the comfortable feelings that type environment brings you - but I personally I don't think this type of management should be inflicted as standard on a wider landscape certainly not beyond formal parks or areas where is reduces functionality (such as instream build up of vegetation on a navigable river). With the possible exception of where common invasive species threaten rare ones.


In addition, having worked on a number of new housing developments and their associated landscape planting I can assure you that plenty of new trees are planted within new schemes - and they're native ones good for wildlife too if I got my way! They're just not down pavements anymore probaby because so many utilities are beneath.

[Hedera]

My bugbear is snowberry - my neighbour planted one on his side of our fence and now its coming up all over my garden including the lawn. The roots have travelled yards. Birds don't eat the berries; the only insects that have any use for it is a leafcutter bee who makes nests from the leaves and small bumblebees on the flowers.

[davidbr]

As someone who likes to hunt for alien plants along them, I'd far prefer riverbanks in towns to be left well alone by the cleaner-uppers. They're one of the most productive sites for these escapes - along the Avon in central Bristol I've found lots of rare introductions from all parts of the world. The display of Flag Irises (Iris germanica) in May is quite spectacular (presumably washed downstream from gardens) and even a Peach tree has managed to get a foothold

[robint]

Snowberry

WOW didnt know that

A Rhododendron is like an elephant, I like looking at one but wouldnt want one in my back yard. What damage they do to woodlands - supposedly a national crisis - got completely out of hand.

A friends garden was allowed to grow wild and filled up with bracken because it attracted the birds which she liked (more then humans I daresay)

After 20 years her neighbours lost patience with the invasive nuisance (even though they offered to help for free) and she was taken to court. The dispute is still ongoing.

There is a school of thought that holds that the world would be a better place without Homo Sapiens. Where ever he sets foot he destroys and unbalances what Mother Nature intended.

Surely its unrealistic to encourage wildlife to flourish artificially in built up areas. Humans have overriding priorities - rightly or wrongly and the lumpenprolitariate headed up by Brown have been encouraged to prevail. Human wildlife has indeed flourished and by "wild" I mean uncivilised and ignorant. Selfish and materialistic beyond all reason, humans seem to have lost all concern for the future and what their children will inherit.

Of course you will counter that there are interest groups who are trying to oppose this vandalism but they are small voices barely audible above the noise of corporate greed

Which is why I like specimen trees and shrubs, because someone a long time ago took the trouble to collect seeds from far flung and often exotic regions and nurture them specially back in Britain. An act of selfless generosity which can still be enjoyed to this day by all.

We created the imbalance so we have to manage the situation. Allowing land to run wild is not generally acceptable for a variety of reasons. I gave the example of the riverside which has completly overgrown with rampant sycamores. further upstream where the river passes through open farmland, no nuisance trees have been allowed to root, only willows, silver birch, alder rowan etc and hawthorn hedges, all managed and reasonable. Farmers dont like nuisance trees either BTW

[davidbr]

It depends what sort of land you're talking about - if it needs to be tidied up to serve some kind of purpose, then fine, but just "because it looks better" is a definite shame. Our local riverbank is a brilliant area for all kinds of unusual plants and trees, none of which do any serious harm; okay, they're not native and shouldn't really be there, but then neither should most of the "wildlife" found in a modern town or city.

It's helped me add a good 100-plus species to my list last summer, anyway - I'm sure I'll find more during this coming season