T015 - Planting 'Sterculia foetida' in Bangkok street

Tree : T015

Specie : Sterculia foetida - สำโรง

Street : Thanon Khao - ถนนขาว

Notes : as usual : tree doomed to terrible fate

On the way to work this morning, with a friend, we stopped to plant this nice little sapling :

Good care makes beautiful trees

Sterculia foetida

 Traffic was dense, as usual at this spot. One guy was stuck next to us, opened this window and asked us what we were doing, smiling. After we told him, he smiled wider, cheered us, and went away. A pick-up driver opened his window and shouted 'Thank you !' as traffic was carrying him to his duties.

Close-up on the recent local massacre (Alstonia scholaris - พญาสัตบรรณ)

Planting a tree here is, on the sidewalks of Bangkok, is not really a favor we're doing the tree. The above picture illustrates the fate they all have to endure periodically. To no avail, if you ask me. We can also see a municipality worker using a watering can (yes, a watering can) to spread herbicide all over the place (pavement and wall still wet on the right). We asked him to spare our sapling, to which he answered something like : "it's safe, I already done that spot".

We can still find on google street a reminder of what the street used to look like until about one month ago. Let me display these pictures, including a picture showing our unfortunate friend above, while still in all its glory.

Same street before they cut the trees
 Again, with T015 planting spot.

See you soon for some other street guerilla tree planting.