The gathering of the clans

On a foul, sodden Sunday at the end of November we held the first of our regular Tree Warden gatherings that we announced in October. We were absolutely delighted to welcome 38 people who are either already actively involved or who are interested in volunteering their time and support.

The handsome upstairs function room at The Talbot was soon full of animated talk and friendly catching up and as you can see, the windows steamed up such was the heat of the exchange!

Anthony and Dom gave brief but important presentations about our work and the need to disseminate information about what we do with the aim of involving a greater number of people to help.

click on any of the photos for larger versions

This planting season, with the help of a very significant and generous donation from a local resident, we will be planting in excess of 30 new street trees in and around the conservation area. That's an enormous increase in our workload as an entirely volunteer led group, so it's imperative that we get more of you on board. We have plans and projects that we would like to develop and we can only do it with your help!

See the Contacts tab above if you'd like to get involved. We'd love to hear from you.

The Tree Committee
The Brockley Society 

PS. With thanks to Lesley and the team at The Talbot for their friendly efficiency in keeping us supplied with tea, coffee, sandwiches and cake! (cake credit to Kara and Friends of BrocSoc Tree Committee!)

Supporting our Tree Wardens

At a recent Tree Committee meeting we decided to try something new to gather together and support the considerable number of Tree Wardens who have come forward to offer their support. 

We are very pleased to announce the first of a series of events to celebrate our Tree Wardens and the work that they do in helping to fund and/or look after our street trees, a get together on 

Sunday 23rd November at 11.30 am 

We will be repeating these events at 4 monthly intervals throughout the coming year.

They are intended to be informal opportunities to get together, disseminate information, support each other and share the workload. 

We very much look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on 23rd November. 

Harefield Rose

Not about street trees this time, but a post about what private land trees add to our local environment (what the planning law refers to, rather blandly, as "amenity value"). 

It happens every year about this time, but this is an extraordinary year, and the spectacle even more impressive - I'm talking of course, about the flowering of that magnificent rambling rose that has been growing up the sycamore/maple in the front garden of the house on the corner of Harefield and Wickham Road for many years now:

Not only is it a beautiful sight, but the scent is also worth catching, particularly at dusk. 

The four houses at each corner of this junction are impressive, and clearly the plantings in each of the front gardens reflect their grandeur. The copper beech opposite this maple is a fine example of its kind. Here it is mid April and mid June: 

Copper beech (fagus sylvatica f. purpurea) in spring -
note pinkish tint to immature canopy

The companion to this tree, diagonally opposite, was lost to honey fungus some years ago. It was replaced by what looks like a maple/acer of some variety, and which has a lot of catching up to do: 

Conference feedback survey

If you came to the Brockley Society Tree Conference we would like to hear what you thought about it. Please would you spend a few minutes answering this small survey so that we can consider your thoughts and opinions about any future plans we have. THANKS!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8WDQNMJ

Trees in the City - 26th April 2014 - Conference Report

The Brockley Society Tree Committee are delighted to report a little more fully about the presentations given at our hugely successful conference last month. 

Wake up and smell the pollution

Lewisham Mayor Sir Steve Bullock opened the conference by raising the issue of rising city pollution and the need for more trees to make the urban environment sustainable. He kindly stayed with us for the opening presentation by Tom Armour. 

Can’t stand the heat? 

Tom Armour, founder and Director of Arup’s Landscape Architecture business gave a fascinating talk about the benefit of urban trees. He showed how the greenest areas in London can be as much as 8 degrees C cooler than the most built up areas. The cooling effect of (large) tree canopies has been well known for some time, but never shown so graphically for the lay audience.

Bring back the birch

Professor Barbara Maher (whose work we reported on here back in October 2013) gave a video-conference talk from Lancaster and presented her celebrated research showing that silver birch trees reduce pollution even at a very local level. Many of us in the audience were struck with the insidious way in which these tiny 'particulates' (from car and lorry diesel fumes) get deep into the lungs. We were surprised at how small the birch trees were in the research experiment (so we don't need to wait until they are mature to reap the benefits!). 

The Silver Birch tree screen in situ for Barbara Maher's important research
Photo courtesy of Barbara Maher

Dwindling resources

A panel discussion which included Lewisham Planning and Lewisham GreenScene highlighted the problem of dwindling council funding and increased pressure to fell trees from insurance companies. Keith Sacre, from Barcham Tree Nurseries, also on this panel, had great ideas on what species to replace lost trees with, and he very generously brought a pile of beautiful hardback catalogues which he donated to the conference attendees (he is happy to supply more if people ask).

Logging the blog

Eamonn, one of our tree committee, demonstrated this blog (which has now passed 10,700 page hits since it started in October 2012!). 

Chainsaw Massacre

Cllr Darren Johnson introduced the afternoon discussing the findings of his (2007) report (blogged here in 2012). Again the issue of contentious pressure from insurance companies to fell trees was raised.

Living legacy

Rachel Mooney from Friends of Hilly Fields gave a fascinating talk showing some amazing photos of Edwardian Brockley with saplings where there are now mature trees on Hilly Fields. It was a sobering reminder that we need to continue planting to protect and extend this legacy.

Photos courtesy of FoHF and Phil Hall

Bearing Fruit

Lewis McNeill from the London Orchard Project in Hackney  showed us pictures of some innovative planting – tiny gardens on street corners or at bus stops tended by local people; apricot trees in Hackney bearing fruit, and fruit trees growing up vertical end-of-terrace walls!  The involvement of local people is crucial for getting these projects off the ground, and then for sustaining them, as they do, by active monitoring, mulching and watering these vulnerable new plantings. He went on to emphasise how young people start to feel protective of "their" trees once they have invested their time and effort in planting them! 

Greening your street

Anthony, one of our tree committee, explained how our scheme developed with Lewisham Council can help Brockley residents fund new trees for their streets.

No blame no claim

Our afternoon panel* discussed practical issues about managing our existing trees and trees being wrongly blamed for subsidence. This is a serious threat to our tree stock and at the moment legal protection for trees is weak. This is something we intend to campaign on at a London-wide and national level. At the end of the panel discussion Angelo very generously offered to donate funds to purchase a new street tree for us, for which we are very grateful. 

Pump up the volume

Our last speaker was Andrew Wilson, Director of Garden Design Studies at the London College of Garden Design. He reminded us that trees are 'greenery in 3D' and showed great examples of small gardens where dwarf trees add a large volume of greenery/canopy without compromising space (many of our new plantings are very immature trees and will provide little in terms of canopy cover for many years - and as Tom Arbour showed us so graphically in the opening presentation, mature canopy is what provides the cooling effect).  

* Angelo Morgan from TreesUK Tree Surgeons, John Bellman, a consulting Civil and Structural engineer and Richard Evans, Vice Chair of the London Tree Officers Association

Again, our grateful thanks to all who presented, and to all who made the conference such a success (not least the excellent support given us by the staff of LeSoCo on the day, and in the run up to the conference). 

All of us on the Brockley Society Tree Committee 

Conference Report - a quick snapshot

Well, what can we say? We're bowled over!!

The Brockley Society's first ever conference "Trees in the City" held at LeSoCo last Saturday was a huge success, with a total audience over the day of 110 (and never less than about 50!). 

Tom Armour, our opening speaker, Chartered landscape architect,
founder and head of Landscape Architecture Business, Arup, London

Many had travelled a considerable distance to join us, and we were delighted with the range and expertise of our speakers who kept us engaged throughout the day (and one, via video link, all the way from Lancaster!).

Perhaps among the most rewarding comment after the event was this one, which illustrates rather wonderfully what can be done by raising awareness of the importance of our green environment, and our trees in particular: 

It took my husband and I longer to walk home after this inspiring conference because we noticed ALL the trees - our relationship with them has changed us forever!  Thank you. 

There is a lot to glean from such an event, and the BrocSoc Tree Committee are meeting this coming weekend to debrief and start following up on the many conversations and connections that were made during the day. 

In the meantime, a huge Thank You to those of you who came along and, and our gratitude to our presenters and panellists who did such a splendid job on the day. 

We will be posting a fuller account of the day in due course. 

The Brockley Society Tree Committee

Matters Sahari

The recent arrival of Saharan dust has again highlighted the subject of air pollution and is a reminder why trees are essential for the urban environment. 

See image here. 

After 15 years of warnings, the EU has now launched legal proceedings against the UK for failing to reduce "excessive" levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) air pollution - mostly diesel particulates from traffic fumes. The government has pushed back its own targets to cut emissions and is showing little will to prioritise the issue.

We know that trees reduce pollution levels by as much as 30% 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18873391

... and have reported here on innovative and inexpensive ways in which tree canopies help to capture and remove these dangerous pollutants from our air, and the scientist who has recently published on the subject will be joining us via Skype on Saturday 26th April to talk about her work (see April 2014 Conference tab above). 

Let's keep planting and replacing trees so that we can all breathe more easily.

London Plane 1 Developers 0

Last week, the London Evening Standard ran a rather reassuring story about the thwarted ambitions of a property developer who was attempting to build a three storey subterranean basement complex under his Holland Park home. The development was thrown out by Kensington & Chelsea Planning because the work would have involved cutting through the roots of two very mature 60 ft London Plane trees. 

Jonathan Bore, Executive Director of Planning in K&C said: "The impact of development on the health, stability, appearance and longevity of high quality trees on and near the site would be such that the character and appearance of the property and the Holland Park Conservation Area would be harmfully altered". 

Hilly Fields Crescent Plane Tree avenue - February 2014

The ultimate irony is that the applicant, Edmund Lazarus, was appointed by London Mayor, Boris Johnson, as Chairman of the London Green Fund, a £100 million project to invest in schemes to cut carbon emissions. 

Full story here.

Green Park -  famous for its avenues of
mature London Plane (Platanus × acerifolia)
October 2013

Health Trees, Healthy People - Arboricultural Association Conference

Following on from an increasing body of evidence of the link between human health (physical and psychological) and the wider green environment, the Arboricultural Association is holding a conference this September in London on the subject. 

It will run for three days between 14-17 September at The Royal Holloway, University of London. 

Details here: http://www.trees.org.uk/Amenity-Conference

And here's a reminder of what can be achieved when we plant the right trees in the right places (Manor Avenue, a few days ago): 

Deforestation - local & global

Just as we announce the planting of three new jointly-funded street trees in Millmark Grove in this planting round (see last post), sadly we have to report the loss of two existing mature street trees in the same road, one lost to disease, the other a casualty of the high winds in the last few weeks:

We really are having to work hard to replace these losses as established trees come to the end of their lives, fall victim to disease or succumb to storm damage. 

Global deforestation

On a larger scale entirely, new technology is now making it possible to track the loss of the planet's rain forests in near real-time. Using satellite images and data gathered at ground level, startling statistics are waking us up to the scale of the losses: between 2000 and 2012, 230 million hectares of forest have been felled, that's:

230,000,000 hectares

... which, put in more comprehensible terms, is the equivalent of 50 football fields of trees being cut down, every minute of every day over the past 12 years. That is truly staggering.  

The link below takes you to the item:

BBC Science & Environment: "New online tools tracks tree losses in near real-time"

New Arrivals

We are very proud to announce the next round of new street tree plantings in and around the conservation area. 

Here are some early morning pictures taken in Millmark Grove in mid December: 

The majority are joint-funded trees with costs being shared between Green Scene (Lewisham Council) and individuals and groups of neighbours interesting in preserving the street trees in their patch. 

We will be updating our "New Plantings Map" in the next few days with full details of the trees and their locations. If you are interested in entering into this kind of arrangement with the council, have a look at the "Tree Sponsorship" tab at the top of the page for more details.