Trees are important elements of green infrastructure, contributing to urban cooling through evapotranspiration and providing micro-climatic effects that can reduce energy demands in buildings. They therefore represent a key resource that can significantly contribute to climate change adaptation.

Trees can offer many benefits, including:

• Providing visual amenity, softening or complementing the effect of the built environment, and adding maturity to new developments
• Displaying seasonal change and providing opportunities for wildlife in built-up areas
• Making places more comfortable in tangible ways by contributing screening and shade, reducing wind speed and turbulence, intercepting snow and rainfall, and reducing glare.

Where tree retention or planting is proposed in conjunction with nearby construction, the objective should be to achieve a harmonious relationship between trees and structures that can be sustained in the long term. The good practice recommended in this British Standard is intended to assist in achieving this objective. BS 5837:2012 is applicable whether or not planning permission is required.

BS 5837:2012 follows a logical sequence of events that has tree care at the heart of the process. The full sequence of events might not be applicable in all instances; for example, a planning application for a conservatory might not require the level of detail that needs to accompany a planning application for the development of a site with one or more dwellings.

This is a full revision of the standard

It introduces the following principal changes:

• Takes account of current practice regarding planning for the management, protection and planting of trees in the vicinity of structures, and for the protection of structures near trees
• Updates the guidance in relation to building regulations
• Recognizes the contribution that trees make to climate change adaptation.

Contents for BS 5837:2012 includes:

Scope
Normative references
Terms and definitions

Feasibility: surveys and preliminary constraints
– General
– Topographical survey
– Soil assessment
– Tree survey
– Tree categorization method
– Root protection area (RPA)

Proposals: conception and design
– General
– Constraints posed by existing trees
– Proximity of structures to trees
– Arboricultural impact assessment
– Tree protection plan
– New planting design and associated landscape operations

Technical design
– Arboricultural method statement
– Barriers and ground protection
– Site monitoring

Demolition and construction in proximity to existing trees
– General
– Avoiding physical damage to the roots during demolition or construction
– Tree protection during demolition
– Permanent hard surfacing within the RPA
– Special engineering for foundations within the RPA
– Subterranean construction within the RPA
– Underground and above-ground utility apparatus

Site works, landscape operations and management
– General
– Drainage
– Topsoil quality and amelioration
– Soil compaction and remediation measures
– Use of mulch
– Hard surfaces
– Use of herbicides
– Tree management

Who is BS 5837:2012 for?

It is applicable to all those interested in harmony between trees and development, this includes:

• Arboriculturists
• Architects
• Builders
• Engineers
• Landscape architects
• Land managers
• Contractors
• Planners
• Statutory undertakers
• Surveyors.

Supersession

This British Standard supersedes BS 5837:2005, which is withdrawn.

Local planning authorities protect trees in the interests of amenity by making Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs). Provisions are spread across primary and various secondary legislation and different rules apply depending on when the TPO is made.

The legislation has been in existence for more than 60 years and has undergone a number of changes during that period.

The Government states that it is keen to simplify the TPO system. This reflects the Government’s ambition to cut through red tape that adds costs and puts unnecessary burdens on individuals, business and local government. Using powers in section 192 of the Planning Act 2008, these regulations put a simpler, fairer unified system in place for all existing and future TPOs in England.

The Government opened the debate in 2010 and ran a public consultation exercise on the proposed new regulations to consolidate the regulations supporting TPOs and streamline the system in England. The consultation exercise ran for 12 weeks from September until December 2010. Over 240 responses were received including from local authorities, individuals, public or private organisations, national representative organisations, local societies and government agencies. Watts Consultancy contributed to the Consultation process and forwarded a response to the Government. Our response can be found here:  TPO Consultation Response – Watts Consultancy October 2010

The new regulations will be subject to internal review five years after implementation to establish the actual costs and benefits and whether the objectives have been achieved. The legislation may be amended accordingly.

Copy of the Regulations can be downloaded here:  Statutory Instrument 2012 No. 605

Copy of explanatory notes can be downloaded here:  Explanatory Memorandum To 2012 No. 605

With the progressive switchover of analogue television reception to purely digital, many viewers have found difficulty in obtaining reception for their new digital equipment, whether from Freeview, subscription satellite or the increasingly popular subscription free satellite platform, Freesat  which now claims more than two million receivers sold.

Satellite requires a near perfect line of sight to the orbiting transponders to obtain good quality and strength of signal. Digital terrestrial also requires reasonable clearance for an aerial to receive adequate signals to decode the transmissions. These can frequently be obstructed by buildings, hills, fences, vegetation and occasionally bad weather.

Local authorities have noticed a significant increase in applications and requests or enquiries seeking the entire removal or the excessive reduction of trees alleged to be obscuring television, digital radio and data transmissions. The majority of these instances can be remedied by other means and Watts Consultancy has advised several Councils’ on this matter and produced a guidance note. This covers a number of options available to homeowners who are experiencing difficulties and which are not being addressed by themselves or their suppliers.

A copy of this guidance note is now available to download here:  Trees and television reception v1.2 Feb 2012

A number of  Local Authorities have now adopted the Watts Consultancy Guidance Note on “Trees and Digital Television Reception”, such as Surrey Heath Borough Council and which can be found on their website here:

Trees & Digital Television in Surrey Heath

and Parish Councils, such as Windlesham.

Should you require any further information on this subject or any other tree or environmental matter, please feel free to email us at: info@wattstreeconsultancy.co.uk

Copyright: Watts Consultancy 2012

Seedlings of the rare Vietnamese Golden Cypress (Xanthocyparis vietnamensis) have germinated for the first time outside of Vietnam. This achievement – the first ever successful propagation of the rare and critically endangered species – was achieved at Bedgebury Pinetum, with assistance from Forest Research’s seed laboratory.

In 1999, the Golden Cypress became the world’s most recently discovered conifer genus. Fewer than 500 individual trees are known to exist in its native country, making it a high priority for conservation. The Centre for Plant Conservation (CPC) in Hanoi has been attempting to germinate seeds in order to boost the population of this species, but with little success.

In 2009 Forest Research tree seed specialist Matt Parratt travelled to Vietnam to help establish what the problem was. He was able to advise on how to identify the best cones to collect seeds from as well as the optimum time to do so. Following his visit, CPC Scientist Nguyen Quang Hieu brought some seeds to the UK. Forest Research has a well established and newly refurbished seed laboratory that was able to use X-ray techniques to examine the seeds and determine which ones contained embryos and which were empty or dead. As a result, viable seeds were selected and planted in the nursery at Bedgebury in May 2011.

So far fourteen seedlings have germinated and are the only surviving seedlings in a nursery anywhere in the world. In four years they will hopefully be mature enough to be planted out in the Pinetum, joining nine other Golden Cypresses grown from cuttings donated by Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and planted in 2005. Despite the much colder British climate, these specimens are doing well. The lessons learnt on how to germinate and grow these rare trees from seed will be shared with CPC in Vietnam to enable them to produce seedlings to reinforce populations in Vietnam and support the conservation of the species in the wild.

Forest Research Newsletter can be found here: View FR News

Courtesy: Forest Research

Ace Tree Management, one of Australia’s premier tree companies, present an excellent video showcase of large trees in Victoria, damaged by forest fires and the various techniques used to fell them. Incredible views of trees hollowed through the burning and the work involved in their removal.

Click on the following link:

ACE TREE MANAGEMENT AUSTRALIA

Their website is also a great source of highly recommended tree work related videos, especially the crane mounted cam during a sectional dismantling operation.

Over five years, Douglass Jacobs, a professor of forestry and natural resources, and Martin-Michel Gauthier, a former doctoral student under Jacobs who is now a research scientist in the Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec, studied the physiology of walnut trees, which are economically significant in Indiana for their lumber and veneer, and in other areas for their nuts. They found that the trees are especially sensitive to particular climates.

“Walnut is really restricted to sites not too wet or dry. It has an extremely narrow range,” said Jacobs, whose findings were published in the December issue of Annals of Forest Science. “We suspect and predict that climate change is going to have a real impact on walnuts. We may see some type of decline of the species.”

Specifically, walnuts would have difficulty tolerating droughts that could be associated with a changing climate.

“Changes in moisture could restrict its ability to survive without irrigation,” Jacobs said. “Almost all climate change models predict that climates will become drier.”

Walnuts are also sensitive to cold, so much so that they have developed a defense mechanism against late frosts. Jacobs said walnut trees don’t begin sprouting leaves until almost a month after other trees in the spring.

That defense mechanism could be compromised by extreme weather events associated with climate change scenarios. Late spring frosts after walnuts have developed leaves could kill trees.

“That, on top of the increase in temperatures, would be a problem for walnut,” Gauthier said. “The trees would basically shut down.”

In California, more than 500,000 tons of walnuts were sold for more than $1 billion in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In Indiana, black walnuts are prized for their wood. Charles Michler, project leader of Purdue’s Hardwood Tree Improvement and Regeneration Center, said walnuts accounted for as much as 15 percent of the logs sold in Indiana at a value of about $11 million.

“Walnut is probably the most important species in the hardwood products industry today,” Michler said.

The center has a walnut breeding program that is attempting to identify trees that can be used in different climates, he said.

One goal is to find walnuts that may be able to stand up to the heat or cold stresses that trees could be subject to in a changing climate. The center is looking at seeds that come from mature trees to see if the seeds have attained defense mechanisms against changes already seen in climate.

“That could be the strategy that trees have,” Michler said. “The trees that are mature now may be affected by climate change, but the seeds they produce may be adapting through genetic changes.”

Courtesy: Science Daily

This BBC Four  programme features Blue Peter gardener Chris Collins, who celebrates the humble and sometimes hated plants we call weeds. He discovers that there is no such thing as a weed, botanically speaking, and that in fact what we call a weed has changed again and again over the last three hundred years. Chris uncovers the story of our changing relationship with weeds – in reality, the story of the battle between wilderness and civilisation. He finds out how weeds have been seen as beautiful and useful in the past, and sees how their secrets are being unlocked today in order to transform our crops.

Finally, Chris asks whether, in our quest to eliminate Japanese Knotweed or Rhododendron Ponticum, we are really engaged in an arms race we can never win. We remove weeds from our fields and gardens at our peril.

A fascinating look at some of the plants we occasionally take for granted or more often, have a passionate hatred of.

If you missed this excellent programme, it is available here to watch again.

Courtesy: BBC

It’s been dubbed the foot and mouth of the tree world. Phytophthora ramorum or sudden oak death as its commonly known is ravaging forests across the UK resulting in millions of trees being cut down. The disease has spread from the South West to Wales, the peaks and even as far north as the Isle of Mull. But experts say they are finding fewer and fewer new outbreaks. Today on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Open Country, Helen Mark visits The South West, the region that’s hardest hit, to find out what impact this disease is continuing to have on the countryside and whether there are signs that we are finally getting on top of it. LIsten Again NOW on the BBC iPlayer

Idless Wood

Listen Now on the BBC iPlayer

Italian architecture firm Stefano Boeri Architetti hopes to merge vegetation and urban architecture, with its Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) project. The Milan-based firm has designed a model that could see the “reforestation and naturalization” of metropolitan cities, by growing forests sky-ways. “Bosco Verticale [is a] device for the environmental survival of contemporary European cities,” says Stefano Boer.

Milan will host the first example of Bosco Verticale, with two residential towers already planned for construction. The towers, measuring 110 and 76 meters (361 and 250 feet), will become home to over 900 trees and that’s excluding a wide range of shrubs and floral plants. The basic idea is that if you were to take the building out of the picture, the amount of trees needed to plant a forest on the land surface should be equal to those growing vertically on the tower. In essence, you will be creating a 10,000 square meter (11,960 sq. yds.) forest, growing upwards.

The project also aids in filtering air pollution contained in the urban environment. This is achieved as the the plants help produce humidity, absorb CO2 and dust particles, and produce oxygen. This will improve the quality of living for the residents, and it also creates a canopy that protects the building from radiation and noise pollution.

An irrigation and filtering system will be installed, that recycles gray water for maintenance of the plants. Photovoltaic solar cells will help contribute to the building’s energy self-sufficiency.

Bosco Verticale will cost EUR65 million (US$87.5 million) and is stage one of the proposed BioMilano, which is hoped to create a green belt around the city.

Watts Consultancy champions innovative methods of bringing trees and vegetation into the urban environment, as seen in some of our header photographs. However, we remain unconvinced that these proposals could find favour in the UK with long winters and dull summers. Even so, residents on the north side of these remarkable features, even in the sunny mediterranean, may find excessive shading and disruption of the views unacceptable.

We shall watch this development with great interest.

Full details and graphics can be found at:  Bosco Verticale

With thanks to Nick Irvine and the courtesy Stefano Boeri

The Trust has uncovered a forgotten treasure, the Royal Record of King George VI’s Coronation. This incredible record details all the tree planting undertaken by thousands of schools, parishes, organisations and homeowners in 1936/7, in gardens, parks and public spaces, and even names the individuals across the UK and the world who planted the trees.

We have taken on the painstaking challenge of digitising the 1937 Royal Record. It is now available online for the very first time for you to search the records and locate trees planted near them, find out if relatives or neighbours planted trees.

Please click on the book to see all this great information and detail of the original book, even down to the sounds of pages turning. The only thing we couldn’t replicate is the amazing old book smell!

Courtesy: The Woodland Trust