Tag Archives: green Dubai

Heavy rainfall turns Dubai desert green

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When it rains in Dubai, it’s like the city suddenly gets hit by a storm of excitement and confusion. The residents are so used to the hot and dry weather that they don’t know how to react when it starts pouring down. Some run for cover, while others dance in the rain like they’ve never seen water fall from the sky before.

The roads turn into rivers and the cars look like tiny boats sailing through the streets. The infrastructure can barely keep up, but that’s all part of the fun! You never know when you’ll get caught in a flash flood, so it’s always a good idea to carry a floatie and a snorkel with you.

It’s like a party that the whole city is invited to, but nobody knows the dress code or owns an umbrella.

The city transforms into a giant slip ‘n slide, with people sliding down the roads in their cars, while others use the flooded streets as a personal swimming pool. It’s like a giant water park, but instead of paying for admission, you just have to brave the heavy rain.

Since the weather is so scorching and parched much of the year, the rain is like a cold shower to the city’s residents, and we just can’t get enough of it! (Except if you’re on the roads – then it’s no fun at all and you can expect to be stuck for hours.)

My favourite thing about the city turning into a big, wet and wild adventure, as it did last week for three whole days, is that the arid desert outside our compound is now covered with a carpet of green.

Can you spot the gazelles? Here’s a close-up…
Photo courtesy of Elika McCormick

Why must our lush gardens be destroyed?

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Soon to be returned to sand as no-one wants to pay for watering after we leave

Soon to be returned to sand as no-one wants to pay for watering after we leave

A sense of calmness usually descends on me when I stand in my garden. There’s something very peaceful about the scent of frangipani and jasmine all around, the birds chirping away in the trees, and the glorious sight of red, pink and orange bougainvillea climbing frothily up the wall. I love my garden – it was planted seven years ago, and transformed what was a fairly sizeable but barren sand lot when we arrived into a green oasis.

The grass was planted in evenly spaced clumps which, over the next few months, spread to form a lawn. Son2’s baby hair was growing at the same time, and I remember wondering which would fill in first: his fine, downy hair or the blades of grass. The irrigated carpet of green won.

Now, when I stand outside, I feel rather sad: we’re required to rip our lovely gardens out before we move. Every tree and plant, no matter the size, must be removed in order to leave our once beautiful gardens as sandpits again. The reason is money: no-one wants to pay for the watering if there’s a gap before the next tenants move in.

Starting over again in a new sandpit

Starting over again in a new sandpit

Appalled by this treatment of nature, those of us who are being relocated to Meydan South have come together to try to negotiate something very special.

We can bring small plants to our new compound, but as per the rules, we are not permitted to plant large or deep-rooted trees. Many of us are leaving gardens behind in which well-established trees are flourishing. Species include Palm trees, Flamboyants and Almond trees, to name just a few. Between us, these trees have accumulated hundreds of years of growth.

Save our trees!

Save our trees!

Many of us hope to donate our big trees to the common areas of Meydan South, and believe this well-supported, community initiative will bring a number of benefits to the new compound. Firstly, it will transform the brand new but arid development into a green neighbourhood, in line with the Sheikh’s promise to preserve the environment and create a green city.

Secondly, green areas help to keep the temperature a little cooler, and, thirdly, in a country where asthma rates are high, there are health benefits to be gained from minimising areas of open sand. Transplanting our trees will help to improve the air quality while also ensuring the compound looks attractive and verdant with vegetation.

Wish us luck as we attempt to persuade the powers that be to transport and replant our trees!

I have everything crossed.

“A Damas tree ate my house”

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I’ve posted before about turning the desert green and, despite not having green fingers myself, it’s been a real joy watching our garden grow over the past three years.

One of my favourite plants: our eye-popping bougainvillea

And grow it did, from humble sandpit beginnings into a fully-hedged, little oasis of green – helped by an automatic irrigation system that turns sprinklers on twice a day (“rain”, as the children hopefully call it) and drips water onto the thirsty flower beds.

As well as a real grassy lawn and some hardy plants, the other thing that completed our sand lot’s transformation into a lush garden was a wall of trees along the back boundary.

“We’ll plant ten trees,” the landscapers told us (omitting to tell us that they’d position the saplings less than ten inches apart).

“Very fast-growing trees. Very green,” he said, making bushy shapes with his hands.

The tree he was referring to is native to the Arabian Peninsula, has been planted (inexpensively) in communities all over Dubai, and does indeed shoot up to the sky rather like Jack’s beanstalk.

Called Damas trees, they can grow up to 15 metres high and in our garden certainly provided a lot of green foliage, as well as attracting birds and salamanders.

Hedge fund: Our unstoppable, leafy Damas trees, heading upwards at a rapid rate


We weren’t aware of the huge problems these trees can cause until they hit the media a little while ago – and killed my friend’s lawn (right behind us) due to totally blocking out the sun.

The Damas root system, it turns out, is so aggressive in seeking out water and nutrients that it can strangle underground pipes, crack walls, choke drains and stop other plants from growing.

You only have to do a quick search on Google to read headlines such as “A Damas tree ate my house” and to find out that a “Protect your home from Damas tree disaster campaign” was launched recently by a community management company.

Worried, I dug deeper online and on an expat forum read about a villa with 60 Damas trees that had “grown under the ground, around the pool, under our house foundations and are trying to come up in our central hallway,” cracking tiles.

Another post described how Damas roots had infiltrated their downstairs bathroom: “One day, I opened the cupboard under the sink to get some new toothbrushes out for the kids and found a lovely tree inside. The roots were also growing under the bath and had completely cracked the tub,” the post read.

Is it just me, or does this all sound like The Day of the Triffids to you?

I asked our gardeners, the very same people who landscaped our garden with the trees in the first place. “Yes, very bad,” they nodded – and it was agreed they’d topple half of them and prune the rest.

I’m pleased to say, the job is now done. Our Damas trees have been thwarted (for the time being), our neighbour’s lawn can see the light of day, and – after the gardeners went completely nuts with the saw – we’re left with…

Five lollipops!

Rasputin trees: You can’t simply lop the tree off above the ground as it just grows back, leading people to take extreme measures. One person I heard about chopped a Damas tree down, drilled a big hole in the middle of the trunk, poured petrol down and burnt the stump!

On a prettier note, you’d be amazed at the flora and fauna that grows in Dubai, creating explosions of colour in our desert garden

Silent Sunday

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This tree may not bear fruit, but you can be sure its signal will give your BlackBerry or Apple iPhone a boost…

Good luck finding dates on this tree!

I’ve obviously been going round Dubai with my eyes closed though, because when I posted this photo on Twitter yesterday, I learnt that this telecoms-tower-disguised-as-a-palm-tree is not the first by any means. We saw this on Saturday while on a day trip to the emirate of Umm Al Quwain, but apparently they can be seen all over the Palm and around The Meadows in Dubai. The Meadows is an upscale real-estate development, which – like other communities such as The Greens, The Lakes and The Springs – was named with a ‘desert oasis’ theme in mind.