Trees in challenging spaces

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Holland-Street---trees.jpg

Trees play a significant role in creating healthy and liveable communities by providing benefits such as:

  • cooling of urban heat
  • providing shade and shelter
  • beautifying neighbourhoods
  • enhancing biodiversity
  • facilitating stormwater management
  • reducing airborne pollutants, noise and more.

To enhance the greening of neighbourhoods, councils across metropolitan Adelaide invest significant resources in planning, planting and maintaining trees along streets and in parks, as well as installing roadside raingardens and other plantings. However, not all places provide ideal growing conditions. Some streets have narrow verges and other confined spaces and these can present challenging environments to grow healthy and vibrant trees. This can hamper efforts to increase overall tree canopy cover and incur costs and ongoing maintenance.

We have developed a series of design guidelines to help us manage our trees in tight spaces - 'Street Trees in Challenging Spaces'.

This project received funding assistance through the State Government's Greener Neighbourhoods grant program and invaluable input from several councils.

The design guidelines offer a much needed new approach to growing healthy and vibrant trees, which will help maximise tree canopy cover in West Torrens.  

The guidelines are a result of researching leading local, national and international approaches to optimising successful street tree growth and streetscape cohesion and provides a collation of best practice approaches to growing street trees. 

Intended to be used by council staff, the design guidelines are a reference to provide information on the horticultural and civil aspects of growing trees in challenging spaces.

View an overview of the design guidelines.

Download the full version of the design guidelines.