The Tree Blog

Archive for August, 2009

Melbourne's famous Fitzroy Garden's elms are dying - Image by Melburnian on Wikipedia

Melbourne, an Australian city famous for its parks and gardens is about to lose half its historic trees due to ongoing drought and water restrictions according to a recent article in The Age.

The trees in the historic stands of elms in the Fitzroy Gardens in East Melbourne and the famous palms of the Catani gardens in St Kilda are all but dead, the report claims, with the local councils apparently powerless to do anything about it.    It is perhaps ironic that in their century or longer histories these trees have survived the Elm bettle, Dutch Elm disease and Fusarium wilt only to die from a lack of anyone willing to water them ….

What is effectively a boon for Melbourne’s arborists could be the beginning of bad times for the city’s tourism industry if its trees die.

On the weekend trees were brought down by wild weather across Melbourne and Victoria.

Gusts of wind up to 110 kilometres per hour were recorded.

A tree crashed into a house in Belgrave, while trees crashed onto roads in country Victoria.

Emmenopterys henryi, Chinese flowering tree in Belgium by Hans Hillewaert on Wikipedia

If it wasn’t unusual enough for the endangered Chinese tree, Emmenopterys henryi to bloom, doing so just once every 20 to 25 years in China, then it is extremely unusual to happen at all in Europe … where it is out of its element and the climate isn’t normally suited.

Well it happened – at  Belgium’s Arboretum of Kalmthout.