The Guardian's George Monbiot makes a plea to councils that they should be planting more native trees to help wildlife in our towns and cities.
He writes:
My local park is typical. There are scores of young trees, from all over the world. Yet not one of the recent plantings belongs to a species that came here without human agency. And the council doesn't seem to have selected trees which thrive there either: some of them are doing very badly. I'm pleased to see that the eucalyptus – a tree hostile to life outside its native range, and which sucks the soil dry over a wide radius – have curled up and died.
George Monbiot goes on to say that trees and the wildlife that come with them have developed together ensuring a balance.
And while some non-native trees can be useful, he highlights as an example how birch, lime, field maple and hornbeam seem to thrive in our towns and cities.
George Monbiot goes on to wonder if the knowledge exists in council departments to ensure native species are planted, and that information is available online for individuals to make their own planting decisions.
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Alot of waffle and mis information their - Many "exotic" species when planted for production are more efficient than natives, freeing more space to be set aside for conservation than would otherwise be the case - Eucalyptus being a case in point, its speed of growth means that fuelwood can be produced on less than 20% of the area an equivilent native wood would need to produce the sane, potentially freeing up more land to plant for nature.
Another point - Cities are hostile environments for many native trees, with very compacted soils, poor drainage at times, followed by insufficient water at others, Mountain Ash (sorbus) is a good example, where it simply dies as the roots can not tolerate the higher soil temperatures under urban soils - native, but adapted to cooler conditions.
Then their is the issue that some foreign species (sitka spruce for example) are more efficient at producing food suitable for some native animals - IE red squirrels, which in turn allows them so survive where competition from introduced greys is immense, and also on a smaller area of forest, as the food density is higher.
His attack on italian alder is anoying - It is an amazing tree capable of tolerating compaction and repeated root disturbance which the former is inevitable in an urban setting, and the later sadly too common with road / utility works etc. Grey and Black alder would struggle to grow and then die in these conditions, they also cannot tollerate drought any where near to the exted Italian alder can - again, Italian alder being a very good trade-off - most of the wildlife benefits, but non of the mortality. - Right Tree for Right Space