Trees – where would be without ‘em, eh?
Probably living in a hellhole of a city that views the natural landscape as something that pigeons are out-sourced to create.
And so credit is due to our friends from Colchester Borough Council who want to TREE US UP.
Sorta.
Yep – the annual Trees for Years [Mmmm...] returns on 2nd February for the seventh year running. Basically it’s the local authority endorsed game of Take a Tree Home for FREE.
From 10am through until 1pm, residents of Sunny Colch will be able to blag a tree at Rowan House and take it home with no further questions asked. You won’t even have to prove your Sunny Colch residency (anyone NOT smiling is basically a dead giveaway.)
As for the cost to our friends from CBC?
Absolutely nothing.
Sponsorship from OfficeIS is making all of this possible. 2,000 trees in total will be available to take away. We’re all for sharing etc, but we do LOVE the idea of a bit of guerilla gardening down at Rowan House and converting the council car park into a mini Wivenhoe Wood.
It’s a first come, first served basis. Three trees per household. Singletons come off rather well with this one…
Up for grabs are:
Field Maple (Acer campestre)
Silver Birch (Betula pendula)
Hazel Cob Nut (Corylus avellana)
Bird Cherry (Prunus padus)
Cornus alba ‘Siberica’ (Red barked dogwood)
Cornus stolonifera ‘Flaviramea’ (Yellow barked Dogwood)
Raspberry
Blackcurrant
Gooseberry and
Blackberries.
Whoever said that our friends from CBC were nothing but DEAD WOOD?
3 Comments
I welcome this sustainability initiative, I hope they extend this scheme to encouraging community tree planting, for which there are grants available.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/england-bigtreeplant
Great input from OfficeIS.
Now the challenge is to find the tree in the town centre that’s not in church land.
There are none in Crouch Street any more, none in Osborne Street any more.
The High Street would be helped by a boulevard appearance and there is plenty of documented evidence to prove the wellbeing and spending link between greenery and humans and shopping. Come on CBC put the trees back!
I want trees to be planted in our town centre streets but for this to happen, Essex County Council has to be persuaded to allow it, as the Highway Authority. I would welcome readers’ support and practical proposals. Please contact me via my contact details on the Colchester Borough Council website. I agree that the High Street would be helped by a boulevard appearance. I think shade and oxygen would be welcome improvements. I have been told that this is not practicable because of the cost of moving underground utility cables etc. Any suggestions for dealing with this? I have looked for evidence that there used to be trees in the High Street but have not found any. Old photographs prove that it had no trees for most of the 20th century. The plane tree outside Angel Court is fairly young. However, we are not bound by that precedent. We are in the air-polluted, global warming-challenged 21st century now.