The below file’s from Cardiff’s guide to managing allotments for Associations such as PPAA. It’s about the evergreen oak, also known as holm oak, holly oak, etc., and which is often found growing on PPA site. Their planting’s banned in many countries.
Volunteers have been removing the saplings and young trees of this species, wherever they’ve been found on site, for the past few years.
As the article says, they’ve been colonising areas such as ours, and we’d add that they’re a particular problem in that their shade is so very dense that virtually nothing – not even moss – will grow beneath them, and so they progressively eliminate a great deal of wildlife habitat.
There’re a number of huge mature specimens in Pontcanna Fields Park and elsewhere locally, and squirrels bury the acorns quite assiduously all around, so the saplings are a problem not just on PPA, but also in gardens locally. The banks of the River Taff near Sophia Gardens have been smothered by these trees, notably.
So if anyone should find these growing on their plot, or in their garden at home, then they’d be well advised to dig them out before they get any bigger.
PPA Website Team
