Looking after the city's trees

Tenants' Link 01.04.21

Looking after the city's trees

After a winter in lockdown, we’re all looking forward to getting out in the fresh air and enjoying nature. Whether you’re heading for the back garden or your local park, take time to appreciate the trees and plants all around and feel a connection with nature. This can really lift your mood and help you feel positive, which is good for your mental health and wellbeing.

As well as improving our mood, trees provide lots of other important benefits such as making neighbourhoods greener, attracting wildlife and reducing pollution and flooding. So it’s essential we look after our green areas and properly care for the thousands of trees across Southampton.

We have a team of tree experts who maintain trees growing on public land and check they are safe and healthy. Back in 2019 we started a citywide safety survey to check and prune trees in council house gardens. We made good progress visiting gardens of council properties in the west of the city before the programme had to pause due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, we are now looking at restarting these important tree safety checks and will soon be recommencing the programme, concentrating on the east of the city. Our next stops will be Harefield, Peartree and Sholing, so if you live in one of these neighbourhoods and have a tree in your garden, please expect a visit from one of our tree experts soon.

During the visit the experts will check that the tree is safe and will prune it if branches are causing a hazard or are in danger of damaging your property.

Please note that we do not carry out work on healthy trees that are:

Affecting TV reception
Obstructing light
Obstructing views
Producing falling fruits (including acorns, conkers, berries, leaf fall)
Producing sap
Overhanging into gardens
Attracting birds to perch

If you would like to know more about how to care for the trees and other plants in your garden, or your local communal garden, why not join a local gardening club? Get in touch to find out where your nearest gardening club is. Plus, check out the free, regular gardening advice sessions run by the experts at Mayfield Nurseries as part of our award-winning Plants For People project. The project has created successful community gardens in Shirley, Millbrook and Holyrood, with more to come in Weston, Sholing and Thornhill. For more details look online or on the Plants for People Facebook.

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