Young Grace Tucsok hugs a spotted gum tree in the Botanic Gardens. Picture: LUKE HEMER Source: adelaidenow
- TELL US: What street trees should we have?
THE Adelaide City Council has been warned to cut back plans to plant plane trees in Victoria Square and, instead, consider a mix of native and exotic trees better suited to the state's climate.
Experts argue that two key options the council has been looking at - lemon-scented gums and plane trees - are not the best choices.
The council is grappling with a decision on which tree type best suits the site, with a decision likely at a full council meeting on April 16.
About 100 native lemon-scented gums were to be planted until a council committee overruled the plans at the last minute, pushing northern hemisphere plane trees instead.
An artist's impression of the revamped Victoria Square, which will be able to host events for up to 10,000 people and include new trees and pedestrian and cycle paths.
"It's also more structurally stable (than the lemon-scented gum)," he said. Mr Lawry also suggested kurrajongs and jacarandas as another option.
Gardening expert Jon Lamb said the council should consider climate change and the state's hot, dry climate when making their final decision.
"The trees that we grow should be tall, wide and deciduous," he said.
"They can provide shade for people to come together during the summer period and, if they're deciduous, it will allow the sun to shine through in the winter so people can use the square all-year round," he said.
Mr Lamb said the right tree had the ability to cool Victoria Square with its shade canopy by up to 10C in summer. He said European and American oak trees, Moreton Bay figs, SA blue gums or smooth-barked gums were better options than what was being proposed.
"The lemon-scented gum would be a very poor choice as it would survive but only if we provide it all the water that it needs," he said.
District Council of Mt Barker urban forest officer Chris Lawry agreed the ACC should be looking beyond plane trees for the Square.
"They're not going to give Victoria Square identity because there are planes everywhere already," he said.
Despite this, Mr Lawry named plane trees as the perfect tree for soaking up pollution, dust and diesel fumes, which other exotic trees such as maples and oaks are also good at.
He said Adelaide had "overdone" plane trees and should look for a better alternative. "We don't want to be boring, we need some diversity in our tree planting," Mr Lawry said.
By Katrina Stokes
PLANE trees provide shade in the summer months, sun in winter and take pride of place on the streets of Paris and London - but can cause serious allergies.
Lemon-scented gums are beautiful and uniquely Australian but are known for dropping limbs and bark all year round.
The pros and cons of both species are causing major headaches for the Adelaide City Council's $100 million Victoria Square redevelopment as councillors debate which tree should feature in the city's new major tourism and recreation hub.
About 100 lemon-scented gums were set to be planted until - at the 11th hour - an Adelaide City Council committee meeting overruled the decision, pushing plane trees instead.
The final decision will be made in coming weeks, but it raises the question - which trees are most suitable for Adelaide's streets?
Confusion over which kind of trees councils should be planting has been watched with interest by researchers at Adelaide's Botanic Gardens, who are spearheading a new website to help people with tree selection.
The website, to be named The Tree Selector, will aid residents, city planners, builders and developers in determining the correct trees they could be planting in their council area.
Botanic Gardens green infrastructure project officer Sheryn Pitman said the new website, partly funded by the Local Government Association and SA Water, would help people plant the right trees in the right places.
District Council of Mt Barker urban forest officer Chris Lawry said there were three factors councils and developers should look at when deciding on the perfect tree to plant - environment, economics and aesthetics.
"It's about the environmental function that the tree will provide in that situation, its shade, aesthetics and the functionality of that tree to the locality of it," he said.
"Wherever there are trees in shopping malls, you get people hanging around spending more money ... people shell out more dollars in leafy suburbs (like Burnside and Norwood)."
Mr Lawry said the decision to plant either exotic or native plants was often a personal one.
He said elms and maples were a popular choice throughout the Adelaide Hills for their shade in summer and beautiful autumnal leaf colours.
"We're going to entice more people to the hills in terms of autumn colour and all the things that autumn colour brings ... that is an economic decision," he said.
Mr Lawry said councils too often got "caught up" in tree fads.
"Plane trees have been a fad since the '90s ... we should be saying `let's get some variety', otherwise our landscape ends up all the same," he said.
His thoughts were echoed by Treenet co-director David Lawry, who said it was important for councils to branch out when thinking about tree options.
"We need to have a mixture of Australian and exotic trees - it would be wrong to pick the top 10 trees and just choose those," he said.
Ideal South Australian tree species suggested by the experts include the Chinese pistachio, spotted gum, jacaranda, Moreton Bay fig, South Australian blue gum, crow's ash, kurrajong and European and American oaks.
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