10 Easy Ways On How To Kill The Iconic Rain Trees In The Taiping Lake Gardens

Beautiful scenery. Photo taken in August 2008

It took the iconic rain trees (Samanea saman or Albizzia saman) in the Taiping Lake Gardens more than 120 years to grow to their present magnificent size and beauty. On the other hand, it will only take a fraction of this time to destroy them.

Here are 10 easy ways on how to kill these beautiful and monumental trees.  The first four ways are quick and ensure a complete kill (photos are redone for special effects). The remaining six ways will take a slightly longer time but they will eventually destroy the trees we love.

1. Excavator or Back-Hoe : Push and topple.

An excavator at work. This monsterous machine has the sheer power

to push and topple any tree regardless of its size in a few seconds. 

 Back-hoe. A popular and multipurpose machine use for all sorts of work.
It whacks everything in its path (see the broken branch). 
Toppling a rain tree is child's play for a back-hoe.

Rain trees are completely defenseless because they are shallow-rooted as most of the roots are on the surface. They can be easily up-rooted, cut and removed completely in seconds by these two humongous and powerful machines - the excavator and the backhoe.Very fast and efficient kill.

2. Chainsaw : Cut and slice.

Lumberjacks love chainsaws for their sheer speed and sharpness. 

Modern chainsaws can cut into any type and sizes of wood. Rain trees have relatively soft wood compared to the hard wood of the teak trees. Moreover, most of the Taiping Lake Gardens rain trees have trunks diameters less than six feet (3 meters).

It will be easy work for the lumberjacks and their lean and mean machines to cut and slice a rain tree quickly and efficiently. A fast kill but the tree stump may take a little longer to be removed.

3. Axe : Chop and Cut.

The soft wood of the rain trees are again no match against the 
modern felling axes used by professional axe-men or wood-cutters.

Modern felling axes are made of steel unlike traditional axes that are made of iron. These simple machines are very sharp and can cut all sorts of wood fibers easily and efficiently.

An expert axe-man can effortlessly chop and cut down a big rain tree in a couple of minutes. Another fast kill but need extra time to remove the tree stump from the ground.

4. Herbicides : Drench and Disrupt

Herbicides, or commonly known as weedicides, are chemicals used
to disrupt the natural functions of the plant cells causing them to die.

Some herbicides are fast acting and cause the plant cells to rupture so that they cannot function properly and die quickly. Some weedicides cause the plant cells to grow very quickly and become distorted and die.

Some herbicides cause the natural functions of the plant to slow down. Some inhibit protein synthesis or root growth, while others inhibit the plant growth. Any one of these disruptions will eventually kill the tree.

Drench a rain tree with herbicides and this would disrupt and shut down the tree's working parts depriving the tree of water, food and/or sunlight.  Cutting off any one of these will eventually kill the tree. Another very effective way to destroy a tree but may require several months for a total kill.

5. Critical Root Zone : Pave and Compact

A magnificent rain tree growing with the least disturbances

at the Taiping Lake Gardens

Rain trees grow and flourish into big and beautiful trees in it's natural environment. The ground beneath the trees is untouched by humans.

The rain trees' shallow roots spread out undisturbed to support 

and nourish the trees and its magnificent growth.

 Then people came to enjoy the cool shade and beautiful scenery of the rain trees. And it also brings along with it the many subtle ways to kill a rain tree.

 They build roads and pavements. Erect electrical and telephone
poles, benches, signboards etc. as close to the trees as possible
for their own comfort and convenience
but to the dismay of the rain trees. 

The rain tree roots have to bear the tremendous weight, noise, smoke,
and vibration of hundreds of cars and buses that pass overhead 
each day. It's only a matter of time before they succumb
to this onslaught created by humans.

A jewel in the crown. This beautiful rain tree is situated right 

smack in the middle of a small roundabout or rather the roundabout 

was built around it and slowly strangling it to death

Concrete structures, signboards and litter are common features
around the tree trunk. They are great stuff to smother
the tree roots to death.

The hallowed ground beneath a tree is commonly referred to as the critical root zone or tree protection zone. This zone is often defined as an imaginary circle on the ground that corresponds with the the greatest extent of a tree’s branches end (dripline).

Paving roads, walkways and erecting concrete structures and signboards etc. on this critical and protective ground above the rain tree roots is very harmful to the trees as it compact the soil.

Rain trees' roots hate soil compaction because it reduces the amount of pore space in the soil normally filled by oxygen (micro-pores) and water (macro-pores). Roots need plenty of oxygen and water to function properly.

Compounding this problem is the ever-increasing volume of vehicular and human traffic that use these infrastructures. More soil compaction means less oxygen and water for the roots. Eventually the roots shriveled and die and the tree dies too. 


6. Tree Bark : Injure and Rip It Off

Bang and scraped off the bark of low-lying ranches

Motor vehicles traveling under the rain trees very often bang against the tree trunk and rip off pieces of bark. They also stripped away low hanging branches and leave behind terrible scars on the tree.

Destroy the bark and you destroy the tree!

More often than not, a lawnmower or weed trimmer under the hands of an inconsiderate maintenance worker can easily injure and rip off parts of the tree causing irreparable damage.

The bark is a tree's natural armor and protects it from external threats. It is also the tree's most vulnerable body part above ground and the easiest target to kill a tree. The tree's inner bark consists of xylem, phloem and cambium and together they affect a tree's life.

Xylem cells carry water and minerals from the roots to the leaves and is considered the tree's wood. Phloem, a living tissue, carries manufactured food (sugars) from the leaves to the roots. The cambium, which is a moist layer only a few cells thick, is the regenerative layer giving rise to xylem on its inside and phloem to its outside.

If the food-transporting phloem is severed all the way around the tree (a process called "girdling"), food cannot be carried to the roots and they will eventually die. As the roots die, so does the tree.

7. Use Rain Tree As A Living Support For Utilities : Girdling and Disrupt

A very abused rain tree beside the MPT building. It's at the corner of 

Jalan Kelab Lama and Jalan Kota. It doesn't has a tag

Large and heavy spotlights are fastened to the branches with nails
and steel wires inflicting irreparable damage to the rain tree

This poor rain tree is situated just outside the MPT building

The biggest culprits are the same people who are empower to protect and maintain the rain trees. The pictures speak for themselves.

Decorative lights hang from the delicate branches of the rain trees

 These inconsiderate people conveniently use the rain trees as living support for spotlights, decorative lights, banners, flags, notices etc. They bang in nails and use steel wires to secure all these utilities.

Rain trees branches are fragile and cannot support heavy loads. Steel wires wrapped all the way around a branch is like girdling the food-transporting phloem and disrupt the food manufactured by the leaves from reaching the roots below. The roots eventually starve to death and the tree dies.

The metallic road, pavement and road-sign are strangling 

this poor rain tree to death

8. Construction Around The Tree : Digging and Littering

A sure way to kill rain trees is to invite construction around the rain trees. Any construction work is destructive if it is within the critical root zone.

It will destroy the most venerable part of the tree beneath the ground - the tree's shallow roots. At first, everything seems normal above the ground until the leaves start to dry up, follow by twigs and branches and eventually the tree just topple over because the supporting roots have been killed.

 Any construction around the rain trees will affect the fragile

environment. Kill the roots below and the tree above will die too.

 A cruel act of inconsiderate drains construction beneath the 

rain trees at the open field in Kampung Boyan

Dig trenches to lay concrete slabs. Cut the tree roots and litter

the area around the trees with dug-up soil and rocks to compact

the critical root zone.

9. Erect Power-line : Declare Raintree A Hazard

Which came first - the rain tree or the electric power-pole?

An ingenious way to get rid of a rain tree is to erect an electric power-pole as close to the tree as possible. Over time, the authourities will decreed that the electric power pole is more important than the tree. The rain tree has now become a hazard to the safety and comfort of the people. It has to go. 

Erecting a telephone pole next to a rain tree does not have the same impact as this is considered less critical to the people.

Note: This poor and neglected rain tree is situated at the Green House area. Enjoy its beauty as much as you can while it is still there for it will be gone very soon.

10. Prune Tree Excessively : Remove and Reduce


Pruning or trimming is cutting off branches of a tree for a purpose whether to remove dead, diseased or damaged branches or to make a tree smaller and conform to a certain shape.

Very often a tree is excessively pruned so as to make way
for vehicles passing under the branches.

Pruning is contagious and it's lots of fun cutting off living branches.  An enthusiastic and inexperienced worker may just go on cutting the green branches until the poor tree is almost bald.

Who cares about the very simple basic rule of pruning that is not to remove more than 1/3 of the live canopy or crown at any one time. If a tree has less than 2/3 of its original canopy of leaves, it will struggle to survive and may even die.

 This poor tree is just waiting for the day to get out of the misery and abuse

Moreover, the cuts are often terribly done leaving jagged edges along the cut that allow water and diseases to easily enter the tree and causing decay (see inset picture above). Eventually the whole tree rots and has to be removed.  Then the workers complain because it's hard work removing dead branches.

Now, you know what are the 10 easy ways on how to kill the magnificent rain trees in the Taiping Lake Gardens. These are the things we do not want to see if we want our iconic rain trees to survive for future generations to enjoy. Without the rain trees, especially those along the lake side, the Taiping Lake Gardens is no better than any lake gardens in Malaysia or in Southeast Asia.

Cross-section of raintree. Probably more than 20 years-old

There are many more ways to kill rain trees. You can also love them to death by over-watering and applying fertilizers of the wrong kind and at the wrong dosage, timing and placement. However, that's another story.

A fallen comrade and one less monumental rain tree.

This poor tree could not stand the abuse anymore and 
collapsed during a heavy storm on 22 August 2012.
(read more here)