A virtuoso performance - Russell Miller at the Stephen Lawrence Centre

On a lovely autumn day in October, an enthusiastic group of some 60 tree enthusiasts from Lewisham and outlying areas gathered at the Stephen Lawrence Centre in Brookmill Park, Deptford for an absolutely virtuoso lecture and guided talk by Russell Miller, a hugely experienced arboriculturalist and ecologist, Chair of the Ancient Tree Forum and coordinator of Tree Musketeers in Hackney.

In the light and airy setting of an upstairs room at the centre, Russell gave us a whistle-stop tour of the challenges facing trees planted in our streets, from the rigours of radiant heat traps, how to spot the signs of heat stress, effective watering regimes, the need to mulch and the pros and cons of tree supports, to name but a few of the topics he covered with such aplomb. 

After a delicious lunch, we decamped to the adjacent Brookmill Park and spent an absolutely fascinating hour or so being educated and entertained as Russell demonstrated why he is such an in-demand speaker and educator. His knowledge about the trees species in the park (and associated fauna) was absolutely breath-taking. He fielded all our many questions about the humble London Plane, Copper Beech, Alder, Poplar and two kinds of conifer (which I forget the names of!) and left us wanting to keep him there for as long as possible!

Here, Russell is showing us the tell-tale gall formed by 
nymphs of the Poplar petiole gall aphid, Pemphigus populitranversus

It was a fitting end of year event to mark yet another busy and productive year for Street Trees for Living. This planting season we will be planting a further 200+ street trees across the borough, each with their own guardian/sponsor charged with getting them through those first two critical years after planting. Another development is the very welcome contact and collaboration with other individuals and organisations wanting to learn from our example. New significant contacts include Margate and Thanet, both wanting us to share our methods and learning.

Our gratitude to all the staff of the Stephen Lawrence Centre for their generous help and support in making this event such a success. 

Tree Enthusiast gathering - Spring 2016

Another successful gathering of local (and no so local) residents (old and new) who are interested in what we are doing and getting more street trees planted in the borough. 

The upstairs room at The Talbot was again looking delightful as we discussed our project, our aims and our ambitions, and fielded questions from people who ranged from the complete novice to very much the expert (a very welcome new resident with a wealth of knowledge about tree species). 

We were delighted to welcome Harry Carnegie to the meeting to talk about his project in Catford/Rushey Green and to hear more about the superb map he is making available showing of all public space trees across the entire borough courtesy of a dataset maintained by the Tree Officers at Green Scene. We really do encourage you to go and have a look at Harry's site and map (see the "Lewisham Borough Tree Map" tab above) and see what he has been doing with the data. It's really impressive. 

If you would like to get involved please get in touch using the "Contacts" tab above, or come along to the next Tree Enthusiast Event which will be posted on the blog in due course. 

... and the important stuff - Sunday morning coffee & cake!

Again, our thanks to the staff at The Talbot for their friendly support and to Kara for the delicious cakes she bakes for us.

You won a street tree!

Our congratulations to Kate who was the outright winner of our 2015 BrocSoc Tree Quiz which we were running on our stall at the Midsummer Fayre yesterday. She wins a new tree in her street courtesy of Brockley Society, to be planted this coming season.  

We were kept busy all afternoon talking about our work to raise awareness of our street tree planting initiative, the next Tree Enthusiast event on Sunday 5th July (see tab above), and, of course, the quiz. We had an interesting groundswell of interest about new street tree planting in the streets around Overcliff, Sandrock, and Shell Roads, and intend to put these neighbours in touch with each other. 

We thought we'd give the answers to our quiz here to satisfy the curiosity of those who were stumped by some of the more difficult questions: 

The 2015 BrocSoc Tree Quiz

1. Have a look at the glass plate on the table. Can you name these 4 common tree species just by looking at their leaves? They are all found on Hilly Fields

Top left Ash/Top right Lime

Bottom left Horse Chestnut/Bottom right Oak

2. A row of trees runs up the right hand side of the path from Hilly Fields Crescent to the fork just before the cafe.  How many in the row?  (Twelve / Ten / Eight)

            a. What species are they? London Plane

            b. One of them is different. What species is it? ­­­­­Oak 

3. What variety of tree has its finest surviving specimen in Ladywell? ­Elm

4. Which of these three trees is not deciduous? a) English Oak b) American Oak 

c) Holm Oak

5. If you wanted to buy a tall upright tree what Latin word would you look for in the name? a) baccata b) fastigiata c) pendula 

6. What species of tree in Hilly Fields blew down in the St Jude’s day storm of 27^th October 2013 and is now painted red and yellow? Black Poplar

7. Which species of tree has the greatest biodiversity (ie. supports the largest number of insects, mosses, ferns, lichens, fungi etc) Oak

8. According to an old English rhyme, the wood of which tree makes the best firewood? ­­­Ash

Here's the rhyme: 

Beech-wood fires burn bright and clear 
If the logs are kept a year; 
Store your beech for Christmastide 
With new-cut holly laid beside; 
Chestnut's only good, they say, 
If for years 'tis stored away; 
Birch and fir-wood burn too fast 
Blaze too bright and do not last; 
Flames from larch will shoot up high, 
Dangerously the sparks will fly; 
But ash-wood green and ash-wood brown 
Are fit for a Queen with a golden crown. 

Oaken logs, if dry and old, 
Keep away the winter's cold; 
Poplar gives a bitter smoke, 
Fills your eyes and makes you choke; 
Elm-wood burns like churchyard mould, 
E'en the very flames are cold; 
It is by the Irish said; 
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread, 
Apple-wood will scent the room, 
Pear-wood smells like flowers in bloom; 
But ash-wood wet and ash-wood dry 
A King may warm his slippers by. 

Anon

9. In Norse mythology, from which tree was the first woman made? ­­­­­Rowan

10. The dashboard of the Jaguar car is traditionally made from the wood of which nut-bearing tree? ­(Burr) Walnut

Tie breaker: How many trees are there on Hilly Fields? +/- 750

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. 

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 

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):