City of Vancouver looks at planting drought resistant trees
Posted October 25, 2015 9:07 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – This summer’s drought is bringing in gardening changes for the City of Vancouver. The Park Board plants about 5,000 new trees every year, and is now looking at varieties that will use less water.
But Commissioner Sarah Kirby-Young says don’t expect any drastic changes. “I don’t think we want to start seeing cacti. It’s really important to us to maintain an urban forest canopy and to have that traditional greenery and you know, BC is home to a lot of beautiful species and our trees are important to us. Our staff is going to look at different species and more drought tolerant options.”
That includes trees like Beech, Oak and Dogwood.
Kirby-Young says the water shortage wasn’t the biggest killer this year. “The wind storm that happened in August earlier this year, we lost 500 trees and that was really significant. Typically we plant about 5,000 trees a year and our estimate is that we could lose five or even 10 per cent but it could be higher for this year. We just don’t have the count yet.”
As for the drought, she adds they are also looking into other ways of accessing more water, like capturing rainwater and tapping natural aquifers. Kirby-Young credits people filling those tree bags with saving hundreds of saplings this summer.
