Are trees protected weeds?

 
the weedy woody gang

Yes and it’s a good idea!

There are small groves and thickets here and there in all neighbourhoods, often in unexpected places, backyards, alleys and edges of parking lots. The culprits are these three despicable trees, the urban thugs: Manitoba maple, eastern cottonwood and siberian elm. The infernal trio!

They produce, by themselves or as a team, green spaces...We could always compute the value of their services for humans and urban biodiversity. Or we could simply realize that we were taken off-guard by them...How many Montreal trees are spontaneous, not planted?

And now they are all protected weeds. Strange, no? The City of Montreal’s Tree Policy forbids cutting them. The smaller weeds, as rare as they may be, do not have such a protection. City bylaws specifies a size at which a plant is protected. Like a bias favouring the ligneous species. Or an admission of the fact that if a tree reaches a given size before we notice, it will be safe.

The Tree Policy, you see. And it varies from a burrough to another. There doesn’t seem to be an agreement on what constitutes a tree. Apart from some burrough’s interdiction of this or that species, for the moment it is illegal to cut a tree if:

In Lachine, it has a diameter equal or greater than 10 cm. measured at 1,3 m. above ground and it is located in the front yard of a built lot or any vacant lot.
In Saint-Laurent, it is located on a private lot and has a 50 mm. diameter or greater, measured at an height of 1,40 m.
In L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève, if it has a diameter, one meter above ground, equal or greater than ten centimeters.

It’s all pretty much the same...but everyone seems to have its preferences and wants to speak out.

Our inattention is rewarded by these micro-landscapes, why not extend this principle to vacant lots themselves? They are nodes of future developments, proto-landscapes centers and it would be interesting to explore their potential as urban biodiversity reserves.

Trees and plants themselves have their City Policy.


Flora Urbana est invité à participer au Carnaval de blogues “38th Festival of Trees”. C’est un événement mensuel où sont rassemblés des blogues de toute la planète. À chaque mois un blogue hôte héberge les autres. Ce mois-ci c’est

Trees, Plants and more, un blogue d’une auteure en Inde.

J’ai donc traduit ce message déjà publié à sa demande (la traduction Google est pas mal...mais imparfaite!) Donc voilà je publie cette traduction.

Découvrez tous ces blogs portant sur les arbres à l’adresse suivante:

Festival of the Trees