Will Chiswick’s young trees survive a fourth heatwave?

Trees play a part in mitigating climate change, but they are also directly affected by it

It will take more than the strategies of two councils – Hounslow and Ealing – to take care of our trees as temperatures soar

During the recent hot weather, our trees have never been so appreciated and, at the same time, ignored.

In the High Road you can walk under the shady protective canopy of one ancient Plane tree after another.

Yet in other roads, younger trees could be dying.

Seek out any newly planted trees in a heat wave and you’ll see limp leaves and dry soil. How often is the council watering? In frustration, a few concerned residents may take to watering a wilted sapling immediately outside their property, but how many people can say that they’ve watered a street tree?

Or perhaps gone further still – say up to 50 steps – to save a different tree?

A resident soaks the top soil of a newly planted Hazel and then pours a can of water into the pipe

Young trees are under stress

In a recent Chiswick WhatsApp group, there were so many posts about the perception of poorly looked after street trees that the episode was named ‘Treegate’. But the question is what are we going to do about it?

For many people, nothing – just complain. Surely, it’s the job of councils to maintain the trees that they plant? After all, residents pay their council tax. The issue is a divisive one.

The Bedford Park area has 11.5 trees per hectare, above the borough average of 4.7, giving it one of the richest tree canopies, but not all neighbourhoods are so blessed

What is the challenge?

For cash-strapped councils, resources to look after the trees are stretched. In Ealing, one of London’s greenest boroughs, a team of five has a quarter of a million trees (excluding woodlands) to manage including more than 24,000 street trees.

Ealing’s Southfield ward, located in Chiswick, has the largest number of street trees at 1,652. This area includes leafy Bedford Park, London’s earliest garden suburb, which may explain its outstanding tree canopy, as it was originally conceived as an oasis of green.

Hounslow also has an impressive matrix of trees – 124,144 and 383 different species – giving the borough its distinctive character with everything from Maple, Lime and Plane to beautiful flowering Apples, Pears and Cherries. In this borough, there are 12,669 street trees and all of the trees are cared for by a team of two – a tree officer and an arboricultural manager.

Well-established trees such as Chiswick High Road’s Plane trees are less under threat, but can still suffer

Why more trees are needed

We’re all aware that the carbon-capturing properties of trees are essential to combat climate change – Ealing has made much of its 50,000 trees recently planted – but many of us are asking what the point of planting trees is if they can’t be maintained.

In fact, numbers of trees planted as a marker of achievement could be questionable given that ‘the extent of tree canopy’ is a much more meaningful measure. The biggest, oldest trees are better at storing huge amounts of carbon dioxide safely out of the air, but young trees are urgently needed to replace the natural die-off of the older ones.

As a result of ongoing changes in climate – including drought and sudden heavy rain – established trees can suffer just as much as new ones and can experience large branch drops, suffocated root systems and hollowing out (where the heartwood at the centre decays). The planting of extra trees is vital to create massive carbon banks for the future, but they do take time to grow.

Ealing’s tree service maintains digital map-based records for all its trees

Who should water the extra trees?

Both Ealing and Hounslow – who jointly look after Chiswick’s trees – have a duty of care for the health and safety of our trees. The large amount of trees – especially for Ealing – is a challenge. Both councils operate periodic watering programmes for their trees. Hounslow has confirmed that tree watering is carried out daily for trees up to two years old whereas Ealing says newly planted trees receive weekly watering through the summer months with older trees watered less regularly until established.

In recent years, both councils have advertised schemes to recruit residents to water the borough’s trees during heat waves. These spells of dry weather are becoming much longer and more intense due to climate change.

The councils have also invested in technology tools such as informative interactive maps.

Hounslow Council’s interactive tree map helps you find trees that are in danger

What tools are at our disposal?

Hounslow Greentalk is an online service that highlights all the trees in public areas and allows users to adopt young trees. The interactive map plots every single tree in your street, provides information on whether it needs watering or not and allows you to identify which trees are newly planted and/or most under threat.

Hounslow’s Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, Enforcement and Recycling, Councillor Amy Croft, whose remit is street trees, said:

“We work with our partners to offer continued care for all of Hounslow’s trees, but local people can help to support their environment by adopting a nearby tree and providing it with additional water. With the hot weather we’ve been experiencing lately, we are especially grateful to all who help young street trees.”

In affluent Chiswick, residents may or may not mind the cost of weekly buckets of water for a tree, but with rising water bills it could be a concern. To complete your mission of adopting a tree will require 300+ litres of water over a spring/summer season if done as recommended.

To add to this, Thames Water has just announced a hosepipe ban on watering gardens, which will affect 10.1 million customers. They do say, however, that “buckets and watering cans can still be used.”

One watering champion confided that to water more trees, she cut down on personal showers from 20 minutes (using approx 240 litres of water)  to 12 minutes. Clearly we should all be mindful of our water usage, but not everyone has to be so invested in tree-care to make a valuable contribution. A single tree is enough for one helper.

Ealing Council set up Trees for Streets to encourage residents to get involved

Community initiatives are increasingly important

North of the South Parade, the 13,474 Chiswick residents who are in Ealing have an entirely different scheme. Trees for Streets is an initiative owned by Ealing Council that encourages residents to help newly planted street trees to survive and thrive. Young trees are tagged with a notice ‘Hello, will you Water Me?’ and a QR code allows you to sign up.

Alternatively, residents can go directly to the Trees for Streets website and find a tree to adopt, using their interactive map.

“This is a great success,” says Councillor Dominic Moffitt, Cabinet Member for Climate Action. “There are more than 200 watering champions assisting the council with young tree establishment.” The council has a further 50 who have generously sponsored (that is paid for and cared for) a particular tree in a requested location.

Technology is extremely useful, but it’s not difficult to spot a tree that is drooping, so if you see an unhappy tree do remember to return to it with a container of water – and regularly revisit.

Hand-written watering records on a tree stake; a Trees for Streets tag with a QR code; a wilting cherry tree that may need adopting

Citizens find their own way

Many of Ealing’s saplings are tied to stakes, which are marked when the council arrives to water it. Any examination of these handwritten records reveals that official watering is not frequent enough in dry spells, so it’s why residents are observing droopy new plantings and taking it upon themselves to help. They’ve noticed the pipes that allow water to be poured directly into a tree’s roots and are using them.

One Ealing resident has a great tip for getting water in:

“Instead of using a watering can, I’ve found it easier to fill an empty four-pint milk bottle with water.  They have a handle and a lid and are easier to manage up and down stairs.  If you don’t buy milk like this (we don’t) you may find that you have a neighbour happy to help you out with one or two.”

Another resident, said:

‘We have small bowls for cleanish waste water in our bathroom and kitchen sinks that we empty into buckets and use to water the vegetation outside.”

A Hounslow Council green bag at the base of a tree allows the roots to be watered slowly

Top up any tree watering bags

A pipe at the base of a tree is fairly intuitive, but residents might be less sure of what to do with a green bag. Hounslow Council uses the green ‘tree watering bags’ (slow-release drip bags) for new trees in streets and parks. For these, you will have to pull back a flap and find the slot to pour the water in. These bags release about 50 litres of water slowly into the soil over five to nine hours, which gives the roots time to drink and helps keep a tree alive during dry weather.

In Ealing’s wards, voluntary tree wardens are involved – amongst many tasks – with watering new street trees. The Tree Warden scheme, which typically engages with 25 members of the public each year, offers professional training and skills in tree planting and maintenance. It was the first initiative of its kind introduced in a London borough.

It’s a hard life living in a pavement: stressed out trees in the Southfield ward

Don’t wait for a heatwave to water

Clearly there is a will to help, but whether that enthusiasm is being harnessed enough – or in the right way – is another question. Ealing’s Tree Service is looking at how to inform residents about its climate strategy and how they can assist with watering new trees. They admit that trees watered by residents can establish quicker.

As summers get drier for longer, community groups such as the climate action hub ActForEaling and Abundance , founded to create greenery, biodiversity and beauty in the public realm, will become more important in lobbying citizens.

READ MORE: last year’s initiative in Chiswick was driven by Abundance and resulted in many more trees being watered.

Director of Abundance London, Dr Karen Liebreich, says:

“If we don’t want expensive new plantings to die, residents associations and street WhatsApp groups should post gentle reminders. It is in all our interests that our streets become leafier and shadier.”

Residents can do more

Our own straw poll of WhatsApp groups showed us that residents aren’t necessarily registering for official schemes (or even aware of them), but the consistent actions of a number of passionate individuals will be saving trees. Every new watering champion – whether formally registered or not – will add to the collective effort. The more volunteers, the bigger the impact.

If we look after our trees, they will look after us.