|
Trees
moved
A RAINTREE which had been growing for 70 years on land earmarked
for the new Singapore Management University (SMU) campus would
have reduced the area for the planned library by as much as 30
per cent.
But instead of chopping it down, SMU decided to transplant the
tree, along with more than 50 mature trees on the Bras Basah park
site, on its new city campus.
On July 28 last year, the 37-tonne, six-storey-tall raintree,
with a crown 25-metres wide, made landscaping history by becoming
the largest tree transplanted within Singapore's city district.
|
|
 It
took two 500-tonne cranes to lift it to its new site some 50m away.
What was unusual was that none of the branches were trimmed to make
the transplant easier.
This was to keep the tree intact, said Mr Foo Yit San, SMU director
of campus development.
As part of the two-year tree transplanting exercise which started
last March, 11 raintrees and five rosea trees were uprooted and
replanted.
Mr Foo estimated that the cost of transplanting the 16 trees is
$300,000.
The remaining 15 smaller trees are kept at a nursery and will be
replanted after the SMU buildings have been constructed in about
two years.
|
