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Written By blrsri - 27 December, 2007

Bangalore Trees Saplings roads Everything else

When I was young and growing up in Bangalore tree growing was done with great enthusiasm..there used to be adds on radio singing..'gida nedi' and then there were drives where forest dept gave free trees for all..and that is the reason I believe that we have so many trees here..'Honge' was and is my fav! At a point even Delhi tried to emulate us for improving their green cover! We had three saplings planted infront of my home 2 marked for my care and one each for my folks..they are all very big now and provide lot of shade.. I was passing through the road infornt of le meridian..I could see that many silver oak trees there bordering the golf course were being trimmed to be eventually chopped off to make way for the road widening.. Very unfortunate but necessary step.. Taking a cue from what I saw in Boston where they did the 'big dig', they brought down trees but they planted 2 year old trees in their place. I think we should also do that now in Bangalore. The survival rate for sappling (2-6months old) is very low..maybe 20 out of 100 trees planted would survive. This can be bettererd by planting 1-2 year olds.. It needs effort and such examples was in the papers today..we should support this.. http://www.treesforfree.org/

COMMENTS

Very unfortunate and very unnecessary

Aparna Muralidhar - 27 December, 2007 - 15:43

If we widen roads, we'll only fill it with more traffic; not a single traffic problem is going to be solved by widening roads. There is absolutely no discipline on the roads and all our problems stem from this; when I look at some of the bus/minicab/taxi/auto/lorry drivers, I wonder who in his right mind would give someone like that a license. It takes one look at the face to know the man will be a disaster on the road. Most of them don't understand traffic signals, hand signals, sign boards, and almost all of them are uneducated, uncouth, lack basic road or civic sense - and as with all people who possess these traits - very arrogant. Where we are headed is towards an ugly treeless city that has created more problems for itself than solving any, by killing trees.

Sounds interesting

balnu147 - 29 December, 2007 - 11:18

A very interesting idea indeed.. any idea what the cost of the initiative will e like? I was part of a student group called OISCA when in school (kerala) we planted a lot of saplings but most of them just died out so i agree to the 20 out of 100 stat u mentioned.

forest dept. help

blrsri - 31 December, 2007 - 06:19

The expertise lies with the forest dept in Bangalore! I would have loved to start a non-profit tree growing initiative..but the land costs for something like that is simply out of my reach.. we then can probably work with organizations like http://www.treesforfree.org/ and see if they can do it! The other observations with trees that I have seen is that the 'rain' trees are the fast growing varieties but they do not hold the soil well and are prone to fall early..we see this in Bangalore after every thunderstorm. Also, we having overhead electric lines, planting tall trees there would eventually be pruned down by kptcl! So, trees which do not grow tall need to be planted on the lane with electric poles..usually the BDA lays sewer/telephone lines on one side of the road and electric lines on the other..so planting trees on the sewer lines would be a good idea as these can provide canopy to the opposite side too and with out being pruned!

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