The Resilient Canopy
Street Tree Trials and more: Australia's Tree and Roadway
Experimental and Educational Network (Treenet)
By Michelle Sutton, Editor, City Trees
The mission of Australia's Treenet is to increase and share knowledge across
the diverse disciplines that influence the success of urban trees. It was
founded in 1997 by Dr. Jennifer Gardner—longtime curator of the Waite
Arboretum at the University of Adelaide—and nurseryman and urban tree
champion David Lawry; Dr. Greg Moore of the University of Melbourne School
of Agriculture, Food, and Ecosystem Services has lent extensive arboricultural
knowledge and support from the start as well. Treenet's leadership includes
two urban foresters with extensive research backgrounds: Dr. Lyndal Plant as
Treenet Chair, and Dr. Tim Johnson as Director.
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Street tree trials were Treenet's first priority—
and are an ongoing one. Treenet members began by
trialing trees observed growing in Waite Arboretum
just outside the South Australia capital city of Adelaide,
where the climate is typically Mediterranean—mild
and wet in the winter, hot and dry in the summer. Now
trials take place in cities as well as in nurseries and
public gardens in states and territories across Australia.
Much of the action currently is in Southeast Queensland
(SEQ), which hosted a Street Tree Trials Forum in
February; in South Australia where the annual Treenet
Symposium is held; and in Victoria and the Australian
Capital Territory where nursery industry and govern-
ment practitioners are collaborating. Urban foresters
and arborists from these and other parts of the
country are entering observations and photos into
Treenet's Urban Tree Trials Database (UTTD).
Arborist and longtime UCFS Member Sitara Gare has
been with Brisbane City Council since 2003 and cur-
rently serves as Arboriculture Planning Coordinator
in a department headed by Principal Arborist Russell
Tomlin. Brisbane is a subtropical city where tree
growth is so uniform throughout the year that con-
trasting new wood/old wood tree rings—as seen in
temperate climates—don't meaningfully exist. Though
the region experiences periods of both drought and
flooding, Gare says that excessive humidity leading
to wood decay fungi is the biggest weather-re-
lated challenge facing Brisbane's urban forest.
Brisbane City Council officers were joined at the Street
Tree Trials Forum by others from SEQ local government
areas (LGAs) in sharing their latest findings. Brisbane had
the advantage of reporting on trees planted in 2001-
2003 as well as trees planted more recently. Four >>
