Drought prompts mysterious messages urging residents to water trees in Helsinki

Kallio locals band together to preserve neighbourhood greenery

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The gardeners of the City of Helsinki's Public Works Department noticed recently that someone has been watering some linden trees in the local Torkkeli park in Helsinki's district of Kallio during the drought this summer. To prevent the trees in the small local city parks from dying, some residents had taken a pro-active stand and started spraying them with water.
     
The "culprit" was soon found. She is Heidi Skelemen-Leiponen, who has been hosing nine trees with water in the Torkkeli park and in the yards of two apartment buildings in the course of the ongoing drought.
      Skelemen-Leiponen reports that some neighbours have promised to contribute to the water charges, should any disagreement occur. Besides, it would be much more expensive to plant new trees, she pragmatically points out.
     
The fate of the trees has caused distress to other residents in the area as well. Hence, a number of people from several apartment buildings frequently come out with hosepipes to water them.
      Some days ago, mysterious slips of paper appeared on apartment front doors urging residents to water the trees, as Torkkelinmäki is nothing without its linden trees.
     
Even though Torkkeli people know each other well, the mystery of the messages has not been solved. All signs point to Pirjo Hongisto who is a known tree protector. However, Hongisto earnestly denies having distributed the pieces of paper, while also speaking about an oak tree that she tried to rescue two years ago. The tree died, and now she hopes that the city would plant a new oak on the same spot on the national tree-planting day on September 27th.
      After Helsingin Sanomat reported a week ago that the ongoing unusual drought could kill hundreds of trees in Helsinki's parks, residents started discussions in various chat columns and on online message boards about the adoption of trees and the forming of watering squads.
     
On the other hand, Pekka Markkula from the city's Public Works Department reports that they have not noticed any large-scale watering activism, nor do they really want any. One reason is occupational safety.
      Moreover, Markkula points out that the watering of trees is no easy game, and not something that can be done with a plastic watering-can. It would require appropriate equipment and hundreds of litres of water to hose down all endangered trees.


Links:
  Finnish Meteorological Institute
  City of Helsinki´s Public Works Department
  Kallio (from Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat