Royal Sydney has adopted a new approach to helping ensure our timber remains at home in our landscape, even after limb and tree failures or removals.
Initially, as part of the native heathland landscape restoration, 595 trees were agreed with Woollahra Municipal Council for removal. In their place we planted 2,187, which increased our total tree number by 1,592.
The trees that were removed were primarily for one (or more) of four reasons:
- They were non-native.
- They were older and failing.
- They created safety and playability issues.
- They negatively impacted the growth of the native landscape and understory.
However, much of the wood from the removed trees was not discarded. We have repurposed and recycled the timber in ways that ensure they are still part of the landscape and are contributing to beauty and biodiversity:
- Tree limbs and logs that have habitable shapes and hollows were those laid around the landscape areas to provide habitats for animals – almost 1,000 in total.
- We have also repurposed the timber that was not used for habitat logs to create course furnishings such as tee markers, benches and boundary markers.
This repurposing is a practice that will continue for all incidental limb or tree failures, ensuring our trees continue to give new life to our course long into the future.
