Heritage Tree Care Remediates Ailing Street Trees in Broadbeach Gold Coast

Street trees are an important part of any urban environment and are connected to increased residential house prices while providing  many other environmental, economic and social benefits in both residential and commercial areas.

Benefits of Street Trees Include:

• Atmospheric purification.
• Habitat and corridors for urban wildlife.
• Shade to protect from harmful UV rays.
• Modulation of temperatures by both shading and increased humidity.
• Reduction in the effects of seasonal change i.e. shedding leaves in winter allowing more sunlight through.
• Deflection of wind and reduction of wind tunnel effects.
• Entrapment of dust and other airborne particles
• Protection from rain and hail.
• Reduction of erosion through the binding action of roots.
• Reduction of pollution in urban runoff through filtration of waterborne particles and nutrients.

Keeping street trees healthy and thrive can prove to be difficult due to a number of stressors that adversely affects them.

• Too much concrete and other impermeable causing heat sink.
• Compaction of soil.
• Poor Quality Soil.
• Low Soil Volume.
• Low Nutrient availability.
• Diverted water.
• Inadequate soil Drainage

Heritage Tree Care were recently tasked by Gold Coast City Council to remediate some prominent street trees in the suburb of Broadbeach on the Gold Coast.

The Problem We Encountered:

Street trees on Broadbeach Mall were having problems with soils shrinking and breaking down over time causing the trees to sink nearly 300 mm lower than when they were originally planted.  The soils had run out of energy and had poor structure with little nutrient cycling ability and because of this, the trees were all suffering.

The Solution to the Problem:

The Plant Health team came up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem.  They cut the tree root balls, lifted the trees out, removed all the site soils and then replaced the planting site with new stable and nutrient rich soils. Then we replanted the trees, council Electricians replaced all the lights and wiring. Next, we installed our new ArborPave Plus porous rubber paving over top of Versi cell (structural load bearing plastic cell).

We welcome these trees to their new (old) home and are keen to see how they thrive in the years to come.

You can watch the video of the process from tree removal to soil replacement and then the same trees being transplanted back to their original position.