F E AT U R E By David Adshead
Hedging our bets: greening the grey in towns and cities The humble hedge has traditionally been sacrificed to the paved front garden but maybe now is the right time for a hedge revival
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bidding war during last December’s General Election in the UK saw each of the main political parties pledge to plant very large numbers of trees.1 Sceptics queried how these ambitions could be realised, particularly given the reduction in government spending on tree planting over the last decade. The track record of independent, charitable organisations is better: The Woodland Trust has planted more than 47m trees since 1972, while The National Forest is close to reaching its target of 9m. Earlier this year The National Trust declared its intention to plant 20m trees in the next ten years; a credible ambition for it owns the land on which this might be done. But other events have since diverted the country’s attention and even the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, to have been hosted in Glasgow in what was heralded as ‘2020 Year of Climate Action’, has been postponed thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The planting of trees is a long-established stratagem to counter climate change and an important component in the race to achieve the government’s legally binding target of a net zero carbon economy by 2050. Given the stark statistic that global deforestation currently outstrips afforestation, it is imperative that the UK, one of the
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least forested countries in Europe, sharpens its spade; the world needs to plant simply to stand still. But what else might be done? The recent news that underwater seagrass meadows can capture carbon dioxide (CO2 ) at a rate 35 times faster than that of rainforest trees highlights the need to think laterally and to counter the climate emergency on multiple fronts. So how can towns and cities contribute? While many of them
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benefit from the amenity of green squares, parks and avenue trees, mostly laid out and planted in the 18th and 19th centuries, competition for space severely limits the number and size of trees, particularly forest trees, that can be grown within their bounds. Indeed, health and safety concerns and pressure from the insurance industry, nervous of falling boughs and heaving root systems, have in the last few decades led to the removal of
