Shady trees

Shady Pine trees

Although Cape Town has plenty of pine trees like these, over the years of my existence in the distant suburbs of the city, I remember many beautifully huge trees like these being cut down - for various "legitimate" reasons of course. The reasons range from the need for new roads, new homes, safety, and simply whether or not a particular land owner likes the tree in the place it is.

I'm being a little melodramatic - there are plenty of good reasons to remove certain trees, but sometimes people do seem to remove them for no apparent good reason. A case in point are our new neighbours who, a few weeks ago, removed almost all the trees on their property - and yesterday removed another huge tree.

Granted, the trees that they had weren't the most magnificent, but they were large, green, and provided good shade. Their garden looks so barren now. :(

I took this photo in the very leafy suburb of Tokai - one of the beautiful areas of Cape Town's Southern suburbs.

6 thoughts on “Shady trees

  1. Helen

    That’s a lovely photo, Paul. Dappled shade like that is the best! I can understand why certain types of trees (invasive and water-hungry aliens especially) need to be removed from nature areas, but I cannot fathom why anyone would take down trees in their garden without a compelling reason. A garden with trees is so much nicer.

  2. Paul

    Post author

    It’s true Helen – the reasons that you sited are good. That only think that I hope for is that our neighbours have a plan up their sleeves to replace the ones that they removed with awesome ones. :)

  3. Nixgrim

    We’ve got a HORRIBLE tree in our garden – a syringa. Not only are they messy, but their berries are poisonous. Being an alien, they’re also on the particular list of alien trees one is strongyl encouraged to remove if you have one in your garden. I can’t wait to get rid of it.

    However, it is the only shade tree we have in our garden. Dilemma.

    But – we’ve planted an indigenous baby one (yeah I know it will take 20 years to grow) and will live with the syringa until the indigenous one (I think it’s a wild fig, or peach, or something… can’t remember now) is big enough to provide shade and then the syringa will become mulch! (It’s not even good for firewood!)

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