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Ecology Action on a Fringe-Urban Hillside |
"This was old kauri country, with none left."
"My views are my trees..."
"...since this is an arboretum, vareity - diversity - is part of the rationale"
"...the fine 70 year old kauri and 40 year old rimu right alongside a 70 year old Pinus..."
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Updated 25 February 2009 Bio fashioning a landscape
Teenage Rebel In the early 1930s, a teenager in Sydney, rebelling against the absurdities of the Depression (poverty amidst plenty). Suddenly an eloquent activist for reforms which came to include both economics and ecology. A decade later, in New Zealand, I published a socio-political journal including features on soil and health - not then such populist issues; My reading included Sir Albert Howard’s “Agricultural Testament”, Lord Northbourne’s “Look to the Land” .and similar authors -long before Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" .inspired the environmental awakening. I travelled Australia's Eastern States- starting on a bicycle; addressed hundreds of audiences, worked on farms, talked with those who loved the land, and came to New Zealand, by invitation, as lecturer in 1940. Returning to stay, stood against Sir Walter Nash for Hutt electorate in 1943, planted trees in Hutt Valley, left behind when in the late 50’s I moved to Auckland and became first Director of MOTAT from 1960-70 together with managing a book business. In then rural Albany ,in 1969, I found land for trees; an interesting landscape of 3.7ha, with streams and hillsides, a place to expend lots of energy and protect against invasive “development"'; accessible from Auckland City. This is the place....
When my wife died in 1971, I moved, with three children, to a North Shore beachside, a few miles away. In 1978, the children grown, it was time to live on the property to adequately maintain and extend all that had been done. Fourteen Pinus radiata and Pinus pinaster felled on a hilltop provided the space and timber for a simple – and durable - house. Enough for me. My views are my trees – growing all around – scores of different foliage forms and shades of green, and so many birds. The sea is only ten minutes away. Designation In 1974 the Minister of Lands designated it a Private Scenic Reserve, and I then vested it in a Three Streams Conservation Trust. By 1990, to ensure permanent protection and responsible management, it was vested in the QE11 National Trust, who shared the vision of its future as a community asset and educational facility. Since 2004 it is now owned by North Shore City Council. Now an Urban Amenity In the past ten years there has been an explosion of development in the Albany basin, with residential subdivision right up to one boundary, a new City Centre and Massey University campus only a mile away, and some light industry. From the Northern boundary, alongside my house, is a new Council Reserve (in which I have been planting for several years) including, upstream, a number of mature kauris, one of which is 6m in circumference and probably over 300 years old. Less than a mile further, at the top of Albany hill, is the boundary of Rodney District, extending from coast to coast. So this is the beginning of the green belt, the first range of hills heading North from Auckland. We’ll guard it. Some Details There are well over 4000 trees that I have planted, or tended after they sprang up by themselves, with whose life story I am familiar. Perhaps I can show them to you some day. And many thousands of smaller plants. Not all come from local sources. I respect those who focus strongly on the importance of local sourcing, but it is often not very practical in urban areas surrounded by exotic and random plantings spread by wind and birds for generations. And since this is an arboretum, variety – diversity – is part of the rationale. How can I know where the welcome self-sown kauris, rimus, totaras, kahikateas, nikaus etc. on ground I have cleared or prepared actually come from. Certainly an increasing number are progeny of parents brought in earlier from other areas – second generation immigrants. Because the pines that dominated thirty years ago suppressed many species. 500 kauris came from the Forest Service nurseries at Sweetwater in the Far North in 1984. Although many were rootbound, nearly 90% survived and are doing well. The first dozen kauris, I brought from the phased out Waipoua Forest nursery in 1971 and planted around the only sizeable ricker on Three Streams, now the back lawn of the house. I knew nothing about proper treatment for kauris then, and the soil here was inhospitable podsolised hardpan, but nine of them are now my daily companions and right now – in November – their bright green Spring tips are glowing in the sun. In another thirty years they will overtop the senior resident. That’s what compost and mulch can do even on the poorest ground. Many Sources
Some kowhais also came from that lost oasis, and maybe ancestors of the native pigeons that feast on them dined on the kowhais’ parents. A dozen or more beautiful pukateas are seedlings from below the gnarled old guardians of the steps down to Bridal Veil falls near Raglan. I did not plant the fine 70 year old kauri and 40 year old rimu right alongside a much bigger 70 year old pine tree just 20 metres from my house (on another property}. But look closely and see that the pine is dying from the top and will eventually be eaten by the long-lived natives. Did you think they could not grow happily together for the pine’s lifespan? Tell that to the birds who dropped the seeds. Redwoods and Swamp Cypress from USA The grand landscape-lifting Sequoia sempervirens that have quickly replaced some of the pines removed from ridges were from California, (the frequent suckers at their base will root easily when removed and potted) and the Taxodium distichum whose foliage clearly announces Spring and Autumn and which will eventually tower above the highway had its origins in the Florida Everglades. These and many other features I want to share with you, and will add to them from time to time on this website. Perhaps you have related stories or special information to tell. We’ll have space for it.
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Three
Streams is a lifestyle, a commitment, some repayment for all that life
and the earth have given me.
It
was an abandoned pine plantation and poultry farm, on the then main highway
North. I could take a long lunch-break from the City in the middle of the
day and get healthy exercise before returning. As the possibilities
unfolded it became a rewarding obsession. This was old kauri country, with
few left. Had I bought remnant kauri forest there would have been little to
do but watch it grow. Replacing exotic pines with native species was much
more interesting and worth while.
Some
totaras, rimus, rewa rewa, lancewoods and miros came from the King Country
in Central North Island, and most of the nikau palms now handsomely
dominating the stream valleys came from a grove on Whangaparaoa Peninsula,
20 miles North. The grove has long since disappeared under development.