Every year, around this time, the lamentations of some who, like me, cannot understand how the “virus” of municipal pruning persists decade after decade.
In the Algarve (and all over the country), they turned the trees into monsters again, as was shown once again in an excellent article by Prof. Jorge Paiva came out of Público, he who, with his well-founded wisdom, has also denounced this attack on the vegetal heritage of cities for years.
But the Municipal Councils, at least the larger ones, have landscape architects among their staff, to whom they entrust many tasks, but who, as a rule, are never in charge of looking after the municipal trees.
No landscape architect – I dare say that I put my hands on fire – would support this practice of indefensible mischaracterization of ornamental trees.
Here a couple of years ago, I questioned a guy who, hanging from one of Estoi's jacarandas, was knocking down the poor tree, pruning it furiously, and I asked him who the technician was in charge of those operations - he replied that it was him and that it was "specialist". There, there was no more conversation.
It used to be said that those who went out every year, in these months, to prune the trees were the employees who walked during the year to catch dogs and cats abandoned by the city or in the rat extermination campaigns and, when this time came, they were called for pruning . It seems that nothing changes...
Basic rules that it is hard to repeat again: the trees must be chosen to plant in the streets of the villages according to their size and characteristics; there are species of dimensions and size for all situations and, if they leave the nurseries with the proper training pruning, they will only rarely need any further intervention.
Is it really that hard to get this into the heads of mayors?
If a tree causes any serious inconvenience, it is better to cut it down and plant a new tree suitable for the site!
Pruning, more sand than anything else, reduces the vegetative capacity of trees and makes them more susceptible to pests and diseases.
There is a photograph that I reproduce here, which appears in the already classic book “A Árvore em Portugal”, by Prof. Francisco Caldeira Cabral and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, whose first edition appeared in the 60s of the last century, and which speaks for itself.
Author Fernando Santos Pessoa is a forestry engineer and landscape architect
Fernando Pessoa.
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