Regina's Urban Forest

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by StealthGirl

The city has done a nice job with trees in Harbour Landing. The trees down the sides of Harbour Landing Drive and (I think) Jim Cairns are starting to really get established and it looks great.

I believe the developer, DREAM plants all such trees. The City does very little in new subdivisions. The other thing they have done is make Gordon Rd up to 9 lanes wide in places. Compare that to Quance which is mostly all 4.

[pappcam]

Originally Posted by Stormer

I believe the developer, DREAM plants all such trees. The City does very little in new subdivisions. The other thing they have done is make Gordon Rd up to 9 lanes wide in places. Compare that to Quance which is mostly all 4.

Quance Street is a disgrace which I like to avoid out of spite.

[Festivus]

Originally Posted by Stormer

I believe the developer, DREAM plants all such trees. The City does very little in new subdivisions. The other thing they have done is make Gordon Rd up to 9 lanes wide in places. Compare that to Quance which is mostly all 4.

To counter this, Gordon then narrows down to 1.8 lanes around the curve just west of the storm drain (past Grasslands). In the winter it's basically one lane, just like Quance. The curve was way too shallow, I'm not sure why they didn't graduate it more.

[Stormer]

I am not sure what happened but there appear to be a large number of completely dead large ash trees in Victoria Park. I had thought it just tent caterpillars stripping the leaves but they have not come back.

[James Gablan]

Over the last several years I have seen several street side trees in the Cathedral neighborhood cut down. Most of the trees have been dead or unhealthy. But I never see new trees being planted to replace them.

Does anybody know if there is any program or effort to replant lost trees? I am concerned that, gradually, one tree at at time, we are going to loose most of the urban forest.

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by James Gablan

Over the last several years I have seen several street side trees in the Cathedral neighborhood cut down. Most of the trees have been dead or unhealthy. But I never see new trees being planted to replace them.

Does anybody know if there is any program or effort to replant lost trees? I am concerned that, gradually, one tree at at time, we are going to loose most of the urban forest.

There is a program, but I think it is underfunded. It is the same downtown. Trees die or are cut down and it takes many years or even decades to replace them. These are valuable lost years of growth.

With last year's drought and a tough winter, there has been a ton of die off all over the City. Even several of the healthy new trees with full soil cell installations along the 18 block Hamilton died. Sad.

[Stormer]

Nice to see trees finally planted in the Pilot Butte Creek open space. This could have been done 30 years ago and we would have huge, beautiful trees by now.

I also feel that the City over-mows this and other natural spaces preventing the growth of natural brush and trees and leaving a bland landscape.

Also the recent channel enhancements to the creek to assist storm water flow mean all the riparian vegetation is ripped out including some small trees that have manage to secure a toehold. I realize their is a view that vegetation prevents free flow, but it also cleanses the water and looks much more natural. I really do not understand that need for channel enhancements in that area as there would be no issue at all with the creek flooding over its banks, even substantially, as there is a huge and fairly steep (by Regina standards) flood plain on both sides.

https://www.620ckrm.com/2018/10/05/3...urban-forests/

[StealthGirl]

On my run today, I saw city workers out putting up wire cages around the new trees on the Pilot Butte creekway and watering. Impressive cages on some of them. The cages around the evergreens must be 6 feet across and about 5 feet tall. They have the new trees staked and cables to secure them. They were also watering to ensure a good base under all that mulch. It might be the most care I've seen city trees get. I hope these trees do well. I was impressed to see they planted 6-10' trees, not little saplings.

It would be nice if all that work on the banks of the creek took out that damn invasive purple junk aka purple loosestrife.

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by StealthGirl

On my run today, I saw city workers out putting up wire cages around the new trees on the Pilot Butte creekway and watering. Impressive cages on some of them. The cages around the evergreens must be 6 feet across and about 5 feet tall. They have the new trees staked and cables to secure them. They were also watering to ensure a good base under all that mulch. It might be the most care I've seen city trees get. I hope these trees do well. I was impressed to see they planted 6-10' trees, not little saplings.

It would be nice if all that work on the banks of the creek took out that damn invasive purple junk aka purple loosestrife.

Beavers are vicious out there. Also deer and rabbits will get at certain trees. I am guessing CN has paid for all this, hence the VIT* treatment.


*Very Important Tree.

[StealthGirl]

Very true. Whoever is paying, it's a great idea.

[Stormer]

Originally Posted by StealthGirl

Very true. Whoever is paying, it's a great idea.

I am really interested in these tree planting organizations like Tree Canada. Many big corps of contributed.

When people come up with hair-brained environmental and climate ideas (and by that I mean expensive to the point of making no sense base on the results) I always tell them to spend their money on planting more trees. Trees are a beautiful gift to the earth that just keep on giving.

One kudo to the City, I did see crews out this fall using some sort on injection technology to water boulevard trees that were very stressed after 2 years of drought.

[Stormer]

The City has apparently resorted to paving over sidewalk tree boxes. This is on the 17 block Hamilton.