Importance of Urban Trees

Thoughts and musings

Importance of Urban Trees

Lewis | April 30, 2015 | 0 Comments

The regular readers of our blog will know that we like to keep in touch with environmental aspects of our industry. We ourselves have a strict environmental policy, that has been discussed in a previous blog and that is very prominent on our website. However, when it comes to any developments we believe are important in our industry as a whole, we feel we have a duty of care to bring that information to you. Therefore, after researching on the Landscape Institute  website, I stumbled onto a news article published by them informing their readers that the proceedings from a conference held last year by Trees People and the Built Environment II have been published. It is available in its entirety online for free if you wish to read it for yourself.

All of the articles published in the proceedings document has one central topic; that of urban trees. As landscapers and horticulturalists, we know how important trees are. At the most primitive level, it is the photosynthetic ability they have that help sustain life on Earth by turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. But as landscapers, they provide focal points, natural boundaries and figures of a landscape. Also, as horticulturalists, trees are another tool to make a garden look fantastic, create a central feature in a garden and just make it look complete.

When discussing urban trees, these benefits are multiplied. With overpopulation a constant figure in our lives due to exposure from the issue in the media, one can develop an image of drab concrete jungles with little greenery whatsoever. Now no one wants that! So considering overpopulation is an issue that is tremendous in difficulty to find a solution for, let’s for now focus on the importance of trees and plants in urban areas.

Here’s an example for you. London is now vast; it is an important social and business hub of the world and is home to millions upon millions of people. Some areas of London are incredibly built up, but you only have to turn to places such as Hyde Park to see how important urban greening is. The same principle can be attributed to Central Park in Manhattan, New York. These areas turn these cities from what can be described as a concrete jungle, to a place where people can enjoy nature and the environment. The landscaping and horticulture of both of these areas just give so much to the people who appreciate them.

You may notice that this isn’t exactly parallel to what we at Oakleigh Manor do. But the environment is hugely important to us and as landscapers, we feel we are not only responsible for improving our environment, but also promoting it through our blog as a result. The published proceedings mentioned earlier in the blog looked at the importance of urban trees from different perspectives. But the emphasis falls to the same point: urban trees are an important aspect of our landscapes. I recommend you give the document a read. As I said, a free download is available online.

We hope you enjoyed this article; I’m sure you will if you are as passionate as we are about our environment and the landscape as a whole. Anything to add? Leave a comment in the section below.

 

 

Photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/aidanmorgan/7166887685/”>John-Morgan</a> / <a href=”http://bestbobsfurniture.com”>Source</a> / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>CC BY</a>