Help Care for PLG's Street Trees

This Thursday, LinRoFORMA (the block association for Lincoln between Flatbush and Ocean), is holding a free workshop on street tree care, at 6 pm:

Carla Osorio of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's Greenbridge program will teach us how to support the healthy development of our street trees and how to beautify tree pits without harming the trees. All participants will receive a set of hand gardening tools!

We'll meet in the lobby of 40 Lincoln Road at 6:30 PM and use all the daylight we have.

Keep in mind that there street trees throughout PLG in need of caretakers. The newly planted trees on Parkside near Flatbush could seriously use some mulch and watering this year; if anyone reading this lives in the apartment building on the corner, perhaps you could bug your super about it (or take matters into your own hands).

RELATED:

Why are so many trees on Lincoln dying?
Help the city put more trees in PLG

Comments

[Matt]

I think milliontreesnyc is one of the best public projects I've seen in the last decade, and its full effect won't even be seen for 20 years when many of the plantings are mature. It has the power to transform blocks, if people take care of the trees and help them along.

That said, I recently saw something extremely disturbing while walking through the neighborhood (or just outside it, actually.) A half dozen new trees planted on Martense Street, and another several trees on Woodruff Ave., had been hacked up with what appeared to be a machete. Several of them were cut all the way around the bark, and were likely dead. Street trees have enough stresses on them without being attacked by vandals.

I called the parks dept forester and he said it wasn't uncommon for new street trees to be vandalized, and that if they're still within their 2-year guarantee period they could be replaced. So if anyone sees a dead new street tree, be sure to report it.

It's incredibly depressing, and I don't even know what to think about it. I don't know that I can understand the mentality of someone that would do that to a tree, especially in an underserved neighborhood with a lack of green space and severe asthma and air quality issues.