Time-consuming tree soap opera ends in Yde: ‘We need to communicate better’

With smiling faces and hands covered in mud, trees were planted this afternoon at De Duinstee primary school in Yde. But behind the festive ‘planting day’ lies a modest soap opera that gave the initiators several hiccups. Ultimately, it took six months before the trees could actually be planned.

Tiffany Turk shakes her head again, laughing. She is the parent of two children at De Duinstee and, together with teacher Marieke, is busy ‘greening’ the schoolyard. More attention to greenery, nature, flora and fauna. “For example, we installed an insect hotel in September,” she outlines.

The next step was to purchase a few trees to provide some more shade on the rather gray square. “When the sun shines a little more, the stone box becomes super hot,” says teacher Marieke, pointing to the gray tiles in front of the school building. “Certainly if you are outside with the little ones, this is not an option. But the older children also suffer from it while playing.”

The reasoning was that a little more green should do wonders. “We have submitted a subsidy application to Plan Boom,” says Turk. “That happened last minute, because the project was supposed to stop in October. We purchased five lime trees, but we did not communicate this in advance with the municipality of Tynaarlo.”

That ultimately caused problems. Although the municipality was initially positive, reservations later arose. Because the municipality owns the square and is responsible for the greenery and its maintenance, safety and costs. “Unfortunately, the trees that are subsidized are not suitable for planting in the schoolyard,” the municipality said in a response today. This could partly have to do with the size.

The trees were delivered and temporarily placed in Turk’s garden. Awaiting the municipality. “It wasn’t until January that I was told that the trees were not allowed on the schoolyard,” she says. There was no response to the question whether the trees could be placed elsewhere in Yde.

An interim solution was found: the five trees that were already there could be temporarily placed at De Duinstee. At the same time, the municipality of Tynaarlo provides two trees that can be placed there permanently. These are two small-leaved lime trees, which can grow into full-fledged trees and should provide plenty of shelter. The special thing is that three of the five trees that had already been purchased are also small-leaved lime trees.

Councilor Jelbrich Peters (PvdA) says he is not aware of this last fact. She regrets the course of events, she says. “This is an example of a process that is not going well. We all have the same goal and support green initiatives. We should have communicated better why we do and don’t do certain things.”

Peters calls the state of affairs surrounding the trees in Yde ‘a wise lesson’. “We must learn from this and as a municipality see how and where we can act faster next time.”

Turk is exhausted by the tiring process of the last few months and is hesitant to set up such a project again. In any case, Miss Marieke wants to continue. “We hope to be able to sow an insect mixture around the trees. That would be a nice first step and the next step would be a willow tunnel or a hill with running water.”