Dead trees

Dead trees make me quite cross.

The most cross are the generally new trees which die of thirst in the verges outside of peoples' houses. To me it is quite extraordinary that people can sit and watch trees die outside their houses without doing anything about it. Not walking out there from time to time with a bucket of water - which is all it takes. No need to water the things every day. To the shame of my own road, we have two or three of them, although I am bizzee to the extent of attending to ailing trees within about 50 yards of the house; maybe the sight of my wheelbarrow with cans will shame some others into action.

Almost as bad are the new trees in and around the refurbished Epsom railway station. There are three shops in the immediate vicinity, and none of the managers thought to do anything. There is a railway station and its manager did not think to do anything. The three blocks of flats must have maintenance people with access to decent taps and they did not think to do anything. I excuse the residents, granting that it would be a bit of a fag to water quite a lot of trees from a kitchen tap in an upstairs flat.

And then we have the newish trees in the new estates on the hospital sites and along Horton Lane, to the west of the Chase Estate where we live. Here, I imagine the responsibility lies with the council. I would guess that a man with a water bowser would take a day to water this lot, something which should perhaps have been done once a week during the recent hot spell. At a generous £1,000 a time, maybe £5,000 to save the lives of the maybe 20 trees - trees which we are told cost about £500 a time to plant - we look to be getting quite a decent return on investment. I suppose the council would say that they just don't have the dosh.

There is also the odd mature tree which has expired in the heat. Presumably they were already unwell. And then there are all the natural seeded saplings which seem to cope OK - which all goes to show that Mother Nature does a much better job than the most carefully transplanted root ball.

The council, to give them their due, have told their contracted-out strimming gangs to lay off the baby trees, already under quite enough stress from the heat. Instead, they seem to be strimming the fence posts, with the results illustrated.