More than twenty saplings along the northern entrance to Braidwood have died or are in severe stress from liberal use of herbicide by council contractors. Some of the trees are those which were planted by the community in 2004 in response to the RTA’s threat to remove the historic avenue of heritage listed golden poplars, Lombardy poplars and pin oaks.
Council contractors have used ‘Roundup bioactive’ along the tree corridor as well as throughout the town.
The liberal use of the herbicide around the base of the older trees has also killed off suckers around the base introducing the herbicide to the host tree.
At a recent RTA, now RMA (Roads and Maritime Services) forum in Braidwood residents were told that some of the avenue of trees were sick.
Local arborist Dennis Dempsey said “No damage to the trees is good as they have been in decline from age and drought for some years. Herbicide damage, whilst not major for the larger trees, is significant as it is just another nail in the coffin for the trees. At some stage all it will take is just one more incident to push the trees over the edge. It is also not a good look to see all the damage to the younger trees which are required to replace the older trees as they inevitably die.”
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