I've lived in Sydney for just over two years now, and I've really enjoyed being here - it's a great place to live. One other thing I really enjoy is botany, and as I've travelled through the city I've noticed that the composition of trees appears to change quite radically from place to place. So I'm wondering - what suburb/area do you live in, and roughly what proportion of the local trees in your suburb are gum trees?
I have a few large ones on my neighbours property. One on the side is huge and lifting the fence I reckon you would need 3 or 4 people to lock arms around it to make it all the way around. The others along the back and are normal size but I hate them when the hot northerly wind hit as they drop bark in my backyard I don't mind the leaves and sticks but my whole backyard can be covered in thin bark
I'm in a suburb which is pretty green, with a lot of Eucalypts. I would have said maybe 75% just driving around. A couple of years ago, I went for a meeting and the office I went to was maybe on the 5th or 6th floor. While I waited by myself in the conference room, I stood at the window and marveled at really how green our suburb really is and how Eucalyptus trees there really is.
We also have a lot of Lemon Myrtle, and Jacarandas in the city.
It’s hell if you have sinus issues, but lovely the rest of the year!
Relevant username
Awesome question, you might find this website of use.
https://trees.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/
have fun :)
I’ve noticed that many expensive suburbs here tend to have non natives but newer suburbs out west have natives. Unpopular opinion but I really don’t like eucalypt and native trees at all. Scraggly things that don’t give much shade. Drop stuff all the time and every time there’s a big storm you can bet there are huge branches that fall down onto a footpath. Where I live we have a ton of them and I really wish we didn’t.
Yeah, there's a reason that plane trees and the like have been favoured in the past - grow quickly, nice shade, hard to kill. (Plane trees do have bad droppings too though.)
Mostly councils are planting natives now as they are pretty drought resistant, better attract native wildlife and are thought to fit in better with the ecosystem. But I agree with you they aren't perfect for the traditional suburban ideal of leafy/shady streets within a generation which plane trees and similar will get you.
The park has 6 Cook pines, 1 eucalypt, and whatever those other two evergreens are
The hospital gardens are dominated by Moreton Bay figs
Randwick
On my walking route to Bondi Junction, the forest on the northern side of Queens park seems to have one of everything, and a couple of Norfolk pines. It's one of the best woodlands in the east
0%
we have
Washington Palm - Washingtonia robusta
Bunya Pine - Araucaria bidwillii
Crows Ash - Flindersia australis
Hills Weeping Fig - Ficus microcarpa var. hillii
We have a real mix. Some of those annoying hayfever ones in the built up part of the suburb. A few ghost gums. Mix of jacaranda and some sort of palms in the suburbs and lots of casuarinas by the river in the park!
Inner city suburb, I reckon only 5-8% are gum or eucalypts, but they are huge. There are a good proportion of smaller natives, but a lot of plane trees.
Eucalypts are only one of the genera of native trees that are commonly planted. Acacias like wattles are quite common, plus other branches of Myrtaceae like Angophora (apple gums/red gums) and Melaleuca (Paperbarks), not to mention the brush box (Lophostemon confertus). I personally really love the paperbarks, they're so soft. It is interesting how widely things can vary from street to street even in the same suburb.