Are we planting the right trees?

This, after all, is the so-called winterless north. Was this cold weather snap a one-off or can we expect to see more of the white stuff in coming years?

Murray Anderson was born and raised here and traces his Far North heritage back several generations. He suggests that over many years the average soil temperature in and around the Kerikeri District has dropped by as much as 4°C and it's all to do with trees. But first, a potted history lesson is needed.

Kerikeri wasn't always liberally dotted with folliage. As archival photos will attest, at the turn of the 20th century the land around the Stone Store was barren even though citrus trees had been planted in the Far North as far back as 1819. It was a former editor of the Northern Advocate, George Edwin Alderton, who was credited with the establishment of viticulture in the area and he planted gums, hakea, redwood and wattle trees to provide a micro-climate.

''The gums were used for spars and telegraph poles,'' says Murray. ''But they grew too fast and because of that they weren't strong. But what they did is break up the wind and allow the soil to get warmer as they let through the sunlight.''

Once there were tung trees growing too. A report from the Tung Oil Corporation in December 1938 showed that of the ten tungrove plantations spread over 4,548 acres-55 acres were apparently satisfactory, 733 acres were unsatisfactory and a whopping 3760 acres were filled with 'worthless, dead and dying trees'. A fledgeling industry died along with them.

Today, many of the gum trees have been felled and neither do we see the wide hakea hedges that once graced farmland. Mr Anderson suggests farmers have succumbed to intense land-use practice and have planted slim-line trees in order to squeeze in another two rows of fruit trees either side. While the narrower trees block the prevailing sou'wester that comes over the hill from Okaihau, he says they're not nearly as effective as gums. Are pine trees any better?

''Pines act like awall so the wind merely hits them, rises up and over and carries on. They don't make the air turbulent and break up the wind or allow the sunlight to get through like gums,'' he says.

Murray Anderson's father owned an orchard in Hall Road where the ambulance station is now sited and as a child in the 1950s he simply can't remember walking on frosted puddles. He believes the solution is for farmers to consider relinquishing some productive land to plant gums that can be replaced every so often and the old timber used as pulp. The soil would warm and we won't get the frosts we've experienced recently.

He also questions council decision-making that sees housing development on arable land with good soil (around the junction of SH10, Springbank, Bulls and Wairoa Roads for instance or where the family orchard used to be and is now the Kerikeri township) while orchard trees struggle on land that's not entirely suitable.

''You see lemons growing on rocky ground because the good soil isn't there so they have to keep feeding it. Some of the orchards look as though they're building mounds to plant the trees on because there's no lateral resource to nurture it,'' he says.

On his own property in Waipapa he planted vetiver grass as a priority to control erosion and planted natives when the vetiver was established-and the driveway no longer suffers displaced shingle when it rains.

On a frosty morning in the winter months to come it may be worth remembering Murray Anderson's words and invite in some Aussie gums for warmth.