Frederick is keen to turn his street from grey to green – and is making sure his neighbours know all about Trees for Streets.
Word spreads on social media
On our visit to Haringey in October we met Frederick, a university lecturer at Birkbeck University. His work is mainly done online, so he works from home most of the time. He’s lived in the Harringay Ladder area for about 10 years now, and is of the firm belief that the street he lives on needs more trees.
Frederick requested to sponsor a new tree to be planted this winter after hearing about it via the local Harringay Ladder Healthy Streets Twitter feed.
I love trees, but there have never been any outside my house while I’ve been living here, and in fact the whole street is very lacking in trees. It looks really bare.
We need to plant more trees to help reduce the effects of climate change – it’s important we all get involved where we can.
Frederick
He’d let some of his neighbours know through the street WhatsApp group that we were visiting that day. This was great, as we were able to answer various questions about sponsoring trees, and had a very positive response from them. We hope they’ll consider sponsoring a tree too!
picking the best spot
When we arrived to meet Frederick, we saw that Haringey Council’s tree team had marked up a couple of potential locations outside Frederick house where the tree could go.
Council tree specialists consider technical aspects of planting a tree such as whether there’s space on the pavement, overhead cables, underground services, whether additional work is required to prepare the ground, how close it is to buildings, etc. before approving a location for a new street tree. Our app asks tree sponsors a number of important questions about the spot they’ve chosen to help with this process.
This scheme has helped us to really engage with local residents and work with them to improve their neighbourhoods. We’ve made an effort to consult with lots of the tree sponsors to choose the exact location for the tree to go in, to make sure all the factors have been considered.
It’s important that people think about how these trees will grow in the future, not just what they look like now or in a couple of years.
Alex Fraser, Haringey Council
The best possible start
Frederick has taken on the responsibility of watering the tree he’s sponsoring for its first 3 summers. This is crucial to make sure it establishes strong roots that will last the tree throughout its lifetime.
While most councils water street trees, it helps a lot if residents can do their bit as well – especially as our summers are getting longer and hotter.
A growing street tree needs around 50 litres of water every week in the summer months – that’s a whole wheelie bin full! We’ve put together some watering tips that will help sponsors like Frederick, and anyone else who wants to give their neighbourhood trees a helping hand during the summer.
We’re now in the midst of tree planting season, and the trees sponsored through the Haringey scheme during 2021 will be planted over the coming months. We look forward to returning to the area next year to see how the new trees – and their human neighbours – are getting on.
