In 2015 Braintree District Council (BDC) planted trees between Pasture Road and the line of the old railway as part of the extensive planting in the town funded by a section 106 agreement with a developer. The liquidambers and silver birches in this group of trees did not flourish and over the years 9 of the 11 trees have died. With funding from Witham Town Council the Tree Group has now replaced these trees with two kinds of maple, which we hope will be more robust.
The planting was carried out first on 11 November, when the dead liquidambers were replaced with a maple variety called ‘crimson king’, whose red leaves should match the autumn foliage of the remaining liquidambers. On 25 November the dead silver birches were replaced by another maple variety called ‘lienco’.
This was not a simple exercise. In order to retain the BDC square 4-post cages, it was necessary to carry out the planting within the cages, meaning that the work had to be carried out in a very restricted area. In addition it was necessary to dig out the dead trees, the supporting post and the old watering pipe. This turned out to be even more difficult, since the trees had been supplied and planted by BDC’s contractors in wire baskets and much effort was needed to excavate all the pieces of rusted wire before the new trees could be planted. Nevertheless, all the trees are now in the ground and on 2 December we plan to water them in.
The soil in the planting area is poor and compacted and we shall be keeping a close eye on the progress of the new trees in the hope that, unlike their predecessors, they will prosper. As with all the trees we plant, we shall water them for the first 2 years – and longer, if necessary. A few yards from the present site on the green in Pasture Road we planted a plane tree during the 2018-19 planting season, to replace an oak which had died. We are still watering the plane tree, which is alive but reluctant to flourish. We hope the maples will prove more resilient.
Richard Hawkes
November 2021
