Cupaniopsis anacardioides (Tuckeroo) one of the species council is giving away

Brisbane City Council is giving away free trees to ratepayers as part of its Free Plants Program.

That’s right … free trees !

The species include shade trees such as weeping myrtle, tuckeroo, tulipwood, scrub cherry, small leaved lilly pilly; feature trees such as bluebery ash, lemon scented tea tree, ivory curl, honeysuckle oak, golden penda, flame tree and piccabeen palm.

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.

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.

Gum tree - Image from Flickr by ben britten from New York City, USA

According to a report from The Age, poor farming practices are apparently to blame for thousands upon thousands of century old eucyalypts dying in outback paddocks across south eastern Australia …

Horsham was worst hit with falling trees doing damage to units and cars.

Trees falling on power lines caused state-wide blackouts.

Palm fronds, especially Cocos (which happens to be the weed you most want to remove) are extremely difficult to shred and can’t be done easily by most standard machines.  You can try waiting for the fronds to dry, but this can be a big pain.

Then there is the trunks, which wet and nasty and can chew away at the blades of even the best shredders.  Golden canes are particularly tricky.

To top it off, the mulch and cuttings from palm trees is not of a great standard and doesn’t decompose well, meaning that most people don’t really want it as mulch.

So disposing of palm trees can be a real pain.  But there are people who specialise in palm tree removal even though you may pay a premium.

If you need someone to help cleanup after a Brisbane Storm, you know who to call.

And another fell over 20 metres to the ground in Tyabb, Victoria while trying to lop branches.

UPDATE : There is word of mouth on Tree World that the man involved in the Tyabb incident, an experienced climber later died at age 34 from his injuries.  This is a very sad thing to happen.