The first batch of trees has been planted in an ultra-long-term plan to replace ageing Douglas fir trees that have served as a windbreak at the gardens since the town’s pioneering days.
At a blessing ceremony yesterday, Queenstown Lakes District Mayor John Glover and Kai Tahu representative Paulette Tamati-Elliffe planted two kowhai trees, the last of 86 trees to go into the ground this spring as part of a ‘‘conifer succession plan’’.
Approved by the district council in August, the plan involved a small number of Douglas firs being felled each year and being replaced by a mix of native and exotic species over the next 60 to 80 years.
Council parks and open spaces planning manager Briana Pringle said 90 more trees would be planted next autumn, followed by 80 next spring.
Staff were working on a memorandum of understanding with a group of interested parties, including Friends of the Gardens, the district’s wilding pine control group and sports clubs based in the gardens, to guide the implementation of the succession plan.
A date for the first tree removals had yet to be finalised, but was likely to be in the next 18 months, Ms Pringle said.
The trees planted this spring are a mixture of eight native species as well as giant redwoods (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and cedars (Cedrus deodara).
The Douglas firs, which covered about a third of the gardens’ 15ha, were planted by the town’s early settlers as a windbreak for its ornamental trees, rose garden and bowls and tennis clubs.
The council report recommending the succession plan said the trees were nearing the end of their lives and were a pest species that degraded soil quality, spread seeds and caused biodiversity loss.
