Commemorative oaks - Celebrating our trees - Our Environment: Issue 19 Winter 1999

Our Environment: Issue 19 Winter 1999

Commemorative Oaks Pose A Challenge

First the deer ate the commemorative acorns at Lord Cobham’s Hagley Hall Estate in England. Then there were no acorns to gather for next year’s plantings to mark the 150th anniversary of Canterbury province.

Now Turning Point 2000 administrator Maureen Downes is pondering whether to make a third attempt to replace ageing Hagley Park oak trees from their English source. "1997 saw the deer beat the groundsman to the acorns," she said ruefully. "Last year a disastrous harvest meant there were no acorns. Surely we couldn’t be so unlucky a third time."

Unwilling to tempt fate, Botanic Gardens’ Horticultural Operations Team Leader Warwick Scadden has collected 2000 acorns from some of the oldest oak trees in South Hagley Park. They have been sown in root trainer packs at the City Council’s Linwood Nursery. By December 2000 the oaks should be about 30cm high and ready for planting in Hagley Park and other parks and schools during anniversary celebrations.

Jennie Hamilton

CELEBRATING OUR TREES

Arbor Day on June 5 marks the beginning of the planting season and a time to celebrate the unique bio-diversity of our country. Appropriately it is also World Environment Day, aimed at stimulating awareness of our environment and action to safeguard it.

Each year City Council environmental promotions officer Kerry Everingham helps co-ordinate Arbor Day activities. "Trees are part of the character of Christchurch the Garden City," she says. "They’re needed in all cities to reduce glare and reflection and cut down noise and air pollution. They’re needed worldwide to counteract global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer."

Some, such as the macrocarpa at 213 Marine Parade, New Brighton, are landmarks that have grown up alongside generations of people. That tree is almost 100 years old and is thought to have been planted by Teddy Howard, an early City Member of Parliament and father of Mabel Howard, New Zealand’s first woman MP.

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