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So far as I can ascertain on 6 April 2019, few people in Portugal or Madeira -
out of 2,906 in February, 3,904 in March and 885 website visitors from around the world so far in April -
have bothered to look at the evidence within this website about their trees in pavements;
The following 2 photos illustrate how easy it is for an electrician to kill a tree by tying a metal/plastic tie so tight that it cuts through the Outer Bark, the Inner Bark or Phloem and the Cambium layers depriving the trunk above and kills it, without him/her knowing that is what will happen. Combine that with no maintenance of these trees in pavements and so the population and the paying visitors prepare to endure the failure of branches/trunks of these trees and hope that they are not underneath or that those trees will not interfere with gas tanks below them:

note the splits in the exposed heartwood, where the heartwood is starting to fail.

Below is a diagram showing how thin are the 3 top layers of a tree/shrub which provide protection and power to live for that tree and how easy it is to be damaged without the tree being able to repair that damage:-

The following photo comes from Madeira Island News.com with the accompanying text dated 30 July 2018:-

"A set of iron foundations placed around some trees of regional road 104, in the stretch between the PSP and the Ponte Vermelha, in Ribeira Brava, are conditioning the growth of the trees and generating controversy.
According to one reader to JM, the fact is that the same bases, which are completely rusty as the image demonstrates, are clearly affecting the growth of the species in question, which in their opinion may lead to the destruction of the species.
In addition, it indicates that many of these bases are even reaching the interior of the trees and there are cases of some species that are already higher in relation to the pavement.
Several popular have already expressed concern about what happened. They understand that the solution is to remove the iron bases."
If these iron bases are reaching the interior of the trees, that means that as that tree grows it will at some point be too heavy to be supported by the trunk at the base level and it will fall down - WHY DOES NOBOBDY IN MADEIRA GET EDUCATED ABOUT HOW TREES GROW AND SHOULD BE MAINTAINED, OR DO THEY PREFER TO HAVE ANOTHER 13 PEOPLE KILLED BY FALLING TREES AS HAPPENED IN 2017? AND WILL THEY MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE WHEN PLANTING 288,000 TREES AND SHRUBS IN THE ECOLOGICAL PARK? Since nobody in Portugal or Madeira is reading this during April 2019, perhaps somebody might tell them or will you also be wasting your time?

"This tree was tied with plastic baling twine to a fence when very young. The white section shows the width at which it was tied. This tree top snapped in the wind.
Please never use plastic twine or wire to tie a plant.

Please also do not use tarred cord as it will last too long and cause the same problem as above, use garden twine which will rot within a few years and then allows the plant' stem to expand. For trees or shrubs remember that the stake is only a support for the first 3 years at most, in order to stop the plant from being uprooted and to allow the stem above the 18 inches (45 cms) where it is tied to being able to sway in the breeze and strengthen rather than being tied at 60 inches (150 cms) and then when the support is removed the tree trunk is not strong enough and breaks in a strong wind. If you going to support climbers then also use garden twine, since when you cut it to move or remove that branch every 2 or 3 years, it can then lie on the ground and be recycled by your friendly earth organisms!" from Growing Edibles in Containers in Plants Extra.
If the tree is constricted by a metal ring as shown above; then it will grow over that ring and when the weight of growth above is too much for the area of heartwood within that metal ring, it will also snap off at that point.

166 trees in the pavements in a short section of a road in Funchal, Madeira are being slowly, starved, dehydrated, asphyxiated, poisoned by tarmac and concrete, burnt inside their hollow trunks, roots pounded by 40 ton lorries or shoes of pedestrians, and allowed to rot until killed off during February 2019 (see information in Problems with trees in pavements in Funchal, Madeira in January/February 2018 Page, which appears to have had no effect) as shown by my 433 photos in the following pages:-

• Death of tree roots and
• Death of tree trunks/branches caused by people.
• Solution to problems for trees caused by people using irrigation -
  Growth of Pollarded Tree in Hotel Garden in 1 year provides a water solution to this destruction.
• Damage to Tree Trunks 1, 2, 3, 4 caused by people,
• Damage to Tree Roots caused by people,
• Area of Open Ground round trees,
• New Trees in pavements 1, 2,
• Irrigation of current trees,
• Watersprouts on trees,
• Crossing Branches in trees,
• Utility Equipment with tree Foliage,
• Lights on trees,
• Bycycle Lane in Pavement,
• Public Gardens alongside pavements,
• Hotel/Private Gardens alongside pavements,
• Current Permeable Pavement Surface round trees and
• Irrigation and Fertilising of trees.

The people of Madeira and/or VAN DEN BERK NURSERIES could SOLVE THESE TREE PROBLEMS
or

they could continue to kill these trees and others in the same situation elsewhere on the island
and then continue to be killed by those trees falling on them or on a 1000 gallon cooking gas tank for each of 2 hotels, causing leaks, followed by explosions

or
invite me to do the work unpaid, with Madeira providing food/drink, work clothes, materials and equipment for these tree problems (Madeira would donate the use of the following sleeping facility with my ankles and head above my stomach to drain my ankles and prevent drowning from phlegm created in my throat during my sleep together with 11 medications for heart failure, head tumour, diuretics, blood thinners, reduction of heart rate by 60 beats a minute, glaucoma, and 3 of those medications for diabetes, etc).
It might take me a little time

• to gather over 50 tons of seaweed/ cow manure and mix it before delivering it 3 times a year to each tree and pavement flower bed in this section within Funchal; more would be needed to cover the others in the island,
• removal of pavers and white/black marble pavements and replace with reduced size pavers with 2 inch depth of sharp sand under them,
• deal with unsealed tree branch cuts and rotting holes,
• deal with rotting tree roots,
• deal with root/lorry problems,
• retighten tree braces,
• erect steel structures over gas tanks to prevent damage by falling trees,
• provide irrigation to the trees in those pavements on a weekly basis
• create database of all trees/flower beds in pavements in Madeira, with repair schedule and paver replacement/ irrigation/ fertiliser creation; and irrigation and fertilising time schedules.
• following my use of 6 FAIL (Fortran Assisted Instruction Lecture) written notes, so that the students from Years 1 and 2 of the Architecture Dept of Portsmouth Polytechnic would receive the next 1 hour lecture notes at the end of the previous, I taught the Fortran language, hardware, software, flowcharting and documentation to them within 6 hours followed by 2 afternoons of practical in creating stats from an experiment in the laboratory. Those students passed with 75% following my exam of a waffle, flowchart and program questions supervised by the Computer Science Dept. I graduated with a 2.2 in Psychology from Brunel University the previous year to this teaching, having spent 18 months under Section 22 from falling on my head at 60mph in Wales from a motorbike and then recovering the use of the spoken and written English language by myself. I was passed mentally fit in the January of the year that I took my finals. Due to 1/3 of my brain being detached from my skull, I am discouraged from engaging in contact sports. Following close contact between a female dentist and my teeth, which resulted in a 2 month hiatus in my blood-thining medication, I am also allergic to close contact with the female species, unless my eyes are closed until they move 2 feet (60 cms) away. I have a temperature range between 18-20 degrees Celcius, so it can be a problem where air-conditioning only brings the temperature down to 24 degrees Celcius as in cinemas, theatres and banqueting halls.
  Then perhaps I could teach the following students:-
  • Tree-surgeons to get trees thinned, crowned, etc to aid the purpose for which those trees were planted, not pollard the whole tree and produce a very dangerous result when used for trees in pavements, or for hanging electricity lighting schemes on them - the ties slowly cutting through the bark and the cambium killing the trunk/branch above.
  • Bed maintenance staff in how to prune, which does not mean chopping a rose to ground level each year and nor does it mean using a flail to chop shrubs into rectangles or turn shrub borders into oblong hedges.
  • Bed and tree maintenance staff with use of green manures, seaweed/cow-, pig-, sheep-, chicken-manure, recycled food waste from restaurants and food markets mixed with shredded shrub/tree prunings and used as a mulch to feed the plants under their care.
  • hotel and restaurant staff in checking the state of their toilets to stop the leakage of thousands of gallons of water from the overflow in the cistern or the washer seals into the latrine bowl.
    Having had to reveal 2 leaks in the 2 toilets in the Pestana Promenade Hotel suite in 2018 followed by a leak in 1 of the toilets in the Pestana Mirimar Hotel Suite in 2018 followed a year later in the Pestana Promenade Hotel Suite with one of the same toilets still leaking and it taking an hour for the Maintenance Manager to cure it this time, I am hopefull that next year there will not be a repeat performance.
    Your toilet cisterns remind me of the self-cleaning tumble dryer that used the water removed from the drying clothes to wash the condenser into the same match-box tank with foam pressure valve which activated a pump to transfer that water into a large tank at the top. Unfortunately when the system washed the fine dust into that matchbox, it clogged the foam and activated the pump. When no more water could be pumped, it refused to allow the machine to start drying. That tank was inaccessable to the machine owner and so cost £180 a time to get emptied. Brilliant - a machine designed to fail if it carried out its function, rather like the toilets in Madeira in wasting water.
  • educate the public about their relationship with plants that come into their environment to realise that without them they would be dead from lack of oxygen. In public spaces, it is advisable to be careful since many people suffer from hay-fever, so plants from All Bee-Pollinated Flowers per Month could be used, which would not affect them and those planted areas could be identified for them.

I could use Companion Planting, but I am sure that the above is enough for me to start with in taking 400 hours per day leaving my time schedule for sleep and nourishment not executed,

if

the people of Madeira do not wish to sort out these tree/shrub plant problems themselves as can be seen from the lack of response to what I wrote last year in the Problems with trees in pavements in Funchal, Madeira in January/February 2018 Page.

Although the above is about the trees in the pavements in Madeira, other towns in other countries may find the information within it useful.

I have noticed in my home town that herbicide has been spread

• round the trees on lawn-grass between the kerb and the tarmac pavement and
• under the hoop barriers
  (hoop-barriers would probably be easier than the more effective Brett Trief Vehicle Containment Kerb system) stopping cars from parking on that verge in March 2019.
• Also, where trees are in lawn-grass on steep slopes so that their roots are exposed up the bank, that that lawn-grass has been removed - instead of herbicide being used - between those visible roots.

Perhaps Green Manure seeds will be sown in these areas.
If the Green Manure (Mustard is bee-pollinated) is bee-pollinated rather wind-pollinated, then hay-fever sufferers would not be affected when it flowers and sets seed.
Then,

• if the contractors using their ride-on mowers or rotary mowers cut into the green manure as well, it will not matter as the seed generated from that green manure will grow and replace the damaged legumes.
• These legumes under the hoop barriers and besides the trees will then feed nitrogen to the roots of those trees and
• what rain water that these legumes do not use will be available for those same tree-roots. This will help the trees
• as well as reduce the possible damage to the bark of those trees by strimmers from those same contractors and
• reduce the amount of grass mowings being put into the storm drains, when it rains after those mowings have strayed onto the tarmac road. Green manure instead of grass in and around hoop barriers within a very thin strip of grass between the road and the tarmac pavement will not require strimming as the grass it replaces does.
• if the grass next to private household fences/walls/ telegraph poles/ other items within public grassed areas or next to public buildings is also killed off with herbicides and replaced with green manure like mustard, then the strimming of that public grassed area next to those boundaries could be stopped.

The legumes like mustard between spring to autumn will replace the bare earth, which would otherwise grow weeds and look unsightly - it does not matter if some mustard grows into the grassed areas, since it would be cut down.
Use Lawn Aerating Shoes to spike the bare earth, spread the green manure seed thinly and spread using a soft brush into the holes created by the spikes. Spray the seeded ground with water to dampen the ground, before spreading a thin layer of sharp sand over the seeded area and leave the seeds to grow.
Repeat this next spring, since the first frost during the previous autumn will have killed the top growth of the mustard and the worms will then clear the ground. It becomes too cold for the weeds and just replanting in the spring with mustard will superseed any new growth of weeds.

Overall maintenance cost would thus be greatly reduced and the trees would benefit.

The section below explains why grass has such a detrimental effect on trees/shrubs/ or other plants planted within it:-

This shows the roots of 1 ryegrass plant, which had been removed from the foundation bed of Type I MOT Roadstone in a client's garden. You can see that this plant has tens of yards or metres of root to absorb water.

"Most turf grass roots are concentrated in the first 6-8 inches (15-20 cms) of soil. Try to irrigate only one or two inches of water per week during the turf growing season. You could irrigate the whole amount of water at one time, however most folks have better results splitting the amount into two separate applications.  Please note however in sandy soils where the water percolates more rapidly it may benefit you to split the applications into three separate irrigation cycles.  You do not want to irrigate more than three times a week because you would be applying so little water the outcome would be shallow roots."

"Native Grass Meadow
MARSHALL SILTY CLAY LOAM (HEAVY SUBSOIL PHASE) These plots (18-20) were located in an area that is in native grasses and has never been plowed, but being within a cemetery area has had frequent mowing. It adjoins the Agronomy Farm at Lincoln, Nebraska. T ests on these native grass plots (Table 1) showed that they absorbed over 2 inches of water during the first 1.5 hours with an absorption rate of about 1.4 inches per hour at the end of this time. Following a delay of 10 days during which there was no rain-fall, water was again applied to the test areas with practically the same results as for the previous test. It will be shown later that if the second test is made only 1 day after the first, the rate of intake will be materially reduced. This seems to be due to the settling of soil immediately after wetting. Upon longer standing the soil seems to resume its original condition."

Photo 5 - tree 23 from end of 2 road junction tree in garden IMG_6222.JPG

The roots of this tree are at ground level where they compete with the grass and other plants. Replace the grass with GREEN MANURE such as everlasting spinach to provide nitrogen to the tree roots as a legume rather than the grass which takes away the water and any application of fertiliser or nutrients in an organic mulch. The roots of the tree can then migrate below ground.

The area where the above tree is planted is not usually trafficked by the public,

• since it is witin an enclosed public space.
• The same is true when there is a tree within a high raised bed also surrounded by grass as outside a shopping centre in Funchal, or
• where trees/shrubs are planted within a grassed area like on a bank or in a central reservation of a dual carriageway near the Forum in Funchal,
• or in between old graves with less than a mower's cutting width between them in cemeteries, or
• You are unable to do any more gardening like mowing in your home garden, but you then employ a gardener to just cut your lawn on a regular basis,
• Why not kill off the grass and replace with Clover Green Manure. The tree/shrub roots will get fed and maintenance will only be required once or twice a year to strim/cut the foliage down before flowering and leave on the ground for the worms to take into the soil?