The Last Tree
It’s sad when a city tree dies. Usually we, the city dwellers, don’t even notice city trees when we walk past them, they are simply part of the street, just like buildings on one side and the pavement under our feet. But once they are removed, we realize how important they are for the scenery.
In one of the longest streets in Europe, Bulevar Revolucije (aka Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra) a row of some 500 platanus trees (plane trees) were planted somewhere in the 1920s, at the very beginnings of serious urban planning in Belgrade. Most of them somehow survived World War II and every major reconstruction of the boulevard in the past 80+ years. Inevitably, in that period, a number of them got sick and began to rot from the inside. Surprisingly, new city authorities decided, after one study by the Belgrade’s Forestry Faculty to cut down almost 329 (three hundred and twenty nine) plane trees and in their place plant young new trees. Many claim that it’s not possible for 329 trees to have gotten sick, and that even those that were could have been cured. The reason for this hugely unpopular move by the city authorities remains unknown, there are many theories and most of them include corruption, incompetence and general neglect towards ecology, as poor as it might be in some Belgrade’s parts.
This is what remained after the trees were cut down. Let it serve as a warning – it can happen in your city as well. Hopefully you’ll be better prepared and organized to stop it.
This is the last platanus remaining in the naked part of the boulevard now. It was saved by a fellow who put a fence around it and defended the tree around the clock:
photo: Vucko @ Beobuild
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Some of the London plane trees are two and three hundred years old. They had a particular ability to survive the terrible London smogs because of the way they shed their bark. Urban trees are important for reducing noise and scavenging chemical pollutants as well as providing shade and buffering temperature fluctuations. The ones on the left side of the road in your clip look healthy. Presumably this is all about road widening or maybe parking. Good for the man with the fence, power to his elbow.
Some of this trees only minority 1/3 got sick because of environmental pollution and exposure to toxic petrochemical smog. Unneccessary cutting of healthy branches 10 years ago. The London Plane Tree Platanus xhispanica is one of the most widely planted trees in Australia. It tolerates pollution, neglect, vandalism and poor soils and in return it provides plenty of summer shade and in winter a deciduous canopy that allows the sun through. Most southern Australian cities have avenues of Plane Trees lining many of their streets, complementing seasonal change to many suburbs and inner city areas.
According to Allergist, Dr. Connie Katelaris, the symptoms of Hay Fever or allergic reactions are very similar to the common cold and it is very difficult to distinguish the difference between them. A running nose, streaming eyes, itching and sneezing are symptoms common to both, although allergies exhibit more predominant symptoms of itching. Many people do not recognise that they have an allergy, until they become aware that the symptoms follow a repetitive pattern at a similar time each year. People living and working around Plane trees in Spain and Turkey are experiencing the same symptoms as people do in Australia. The World Health Organisation has studied these effects on health, and other worldwide studies have been published in international medical journals.
There has been a significant increase in the prevalence of allergic diseases like hay fever, asthma and eczema over one or two generations, and there is unlikely to be a genetic reason for it. It appears that the westernisation of our lifestyle is linked with an increase in a prevalence of allergic disorders.
Plane tree pollen
The London Plane Tree pollinates during and around the month of September in Sydney, and at this time high levels of Plane tree pollen can be measured in the atmosphere, and even higher levels where there are dense plantings of Plane trees. Some people suffer an allergic reaction called pollinosis when they are exposed to Plane tree pollen during this time, especially if they have been sensitised previously to the proteins in the Plane Tree pollen. Like other plants, people become exposed to the pollen and other elements of their daily environment. Contact with pollen grains can through the lining in the eyes or by breathing them in.
This trees provided shade protection from UV rays habitat for native wildlife.
How to cure a rotten tree How can I save a tree with internal rot?
You can’t. You can try to slow its decline, but you can’t stop the decay.
The best—and cheapest—intervention is usually to help the tree do its own work of containing the decay. Supply weekly water during dry spells and provide 2-6” of organic mulch.
Fertilization will usually not help much, although aerating the soil to promote root growth is nearly always beneficial to older trees.
[...] least we don’t live in Belgrade: there the government decided to renovate a street by felling about 400 plane trees that had been [...]