"Releaf our Towns" is the slogan on an invitation to the official opening of National Tree Week by Minister Michael D. Higgins at Rinville Park, Oranmore, Galway, tomorrow. Releafing our streets has presented problems, when the roots of some trees broke up the pavement around them. Then, too, people complain of leaves falling in autumn and be coming a danger to pedestrians as they grow slippy. Still, on balance, most people in towns and cities, welcome and appreciate green leaves.
There seems to be a tendency to move from flowering cherry, which does have problematic roots, to rowan and other safer, and, in this case, quite as attractive trees, with their scarlet berries. The Germans seem to have a robust attitude to trees in towns, stoical even, to judge by some decisions of their courts. Excerpts from a book, originally in German, but translated as The Body Language of Trees, and lent by a landscaper friend, contain such obvious remarks as that people's lives were more important than trees. On the other hand, trees had, so to speak, rights of their own.
"A street tree can certainly not be required to be absolutely free of imperfections and dangers. It is simply not possible to achieve such a state of affairs." Traffic safety was usually at the heart of the matter and, for a period, the book notes, there were a number of unnecessary fellings and blanket tree surgery. But the Supreme Court had already lain clown that "The extent of the monitoring and safe guards called for cannot be measured by what would be needed in order to eliminate every danger, for it is not possible for traffic to be made absolutely safe."
Trees are assessed by visual assessment (either from the ground or in cases of doubt, from a raised platform). One German court, by the way, conscious that regular tree inspections can be costly, rejected both detailed root examinations and infra-red photographs as the norm for tree inspections. More of this another day.