About a year ago, I took part in an online writing project about urban trees, organised and facilitated by Amanda Tuke. Part of the project involved looking at trees growing in local tree pits. You can read about the trees I chose to look at here, and read about the writing that came from the workshop here.
A few days ago, on Twitter, Amanda challenged those of us who had taken part in the writing workshop to check up on our tree pits and report back! My trees, although only five minutes walk away from where I live, are in a couple of side streets that I don't walk down very often. But today, I made a special trip to catch up with them!
A nearby street is lined with trees, which look beautiful (though I was talking to a man who was doing his garden and he was saying how much light these trees block out from the flats and how he wishes they were smaller trees)
Looking at the tree pits, it's interesting to see how different they are. Some are almost bare earth (I wonder of some local people weed their nearest tree pit? Or are these pits naturally so sparse?)
Some are almost entirely filled with grasses, usually Poa pratensis
and Cleavers
It is really interesting to see the variety of plants that grow around the bases of the trees. Of course, it's not only plants, litter can gather in the tree pits, in the photo above you can see a discarded cigarette butt and there's a discarded crisp packet below
Walking home, via shopping at Locavore, (a fairly new, ethical supermarket with a refillery and selling a variety of local produce, definitely worth checking out if you're in the area) I took the chance to take a photo of the rowan trees outside the store.
1 comment:
I wonder how they get water!
Our trees are just beginning to open their leaf buds!
Post a Comment