Rudman's city: Enough yap, let's just get on with replacing summit's icon

By BRIAN RUDMAN

When the mice start exploring my ceiling insulation and the ants return to the pantry, you know winter's not far behind. You also know it's the tree-planting season and time once more to think about replacing the fallen pine atop One Tree Hill.

About this time last year I spat the dummy about the amount of money Auckland City had spent tending this icon. That followed a report revealing that since the first chainsaw attack on the 120-year-old pine back in October 1994, ratepayers had spent at least $557,842 on tending, guarding and finally removing it.

Worst of all, the report forecast that ongoing maintenance, security and monitoring of a replacement tree could cost ratepayers a further $40,000 a year. Like councillor Victoria Carter - a lone voice on the council at the time - I thought it time to call a halt and to leave the summit treeless.

It would be fair to say it was one of my less successful campaigns. When it comes to raw emotion, commonsense hasn't a chance. Even before the old tree was felled, reports were flying about how best to replace it. Public support was widespread.

The council advisers recommended a group planting of pohutukawa and totara, "ideally" to take place between April and June to allow the trees to become established before the heat and dryness of summer.

The experts also advised that the seedlings be raised from local stock and be, in the case of the pohutukawa, at least 1m tall before planting and with the totara, 1.3m.

The unsuspecting scientists forgot that politicians have a season too which overshadows any other season and that's the pre-election season, a time when anything goes.

Ignoring the expert recommendations as to timing and size, the politicians decided that to satisfy a "sense of need," whatever that meant, a planting would take place in September, which just happened to be a few weeks before election day.

At that stage the pohutukawa were only half the minimum survival height, the totara were much less, and the planting season over. Luckily for the plants, the politicians were eventually shamed into postponing this pre-election "rally". But the public interest in replacing the trees continued.

In November, a couple of pohutukawa were even planted as stunts - one by a radio DJ - and just as quickly removed by parks staff.

Now, with another planting season approaching, comes a public spirited gesture from the Greenlane Motor Vehicles Dealers Association. Spokesman Colin Crisp says his association will fund the replacement of the tree. He says it is time "the city came out of the dark ages and realised that business has to support some of the beautification and maintenance of the city".

Of course the big cost of planting trees up on the exposed hill will be the on-going maintenance costs, which is not part of the motor dealers' offer. But let's not knock the gesture. Even with the new trees already available, there are several costs associated with the planting, including official ceremonies, marketing and the erection of a cage to protect the seedlings not only from humans but also the grazing cattle that still roam the park.

As for the little seedlings, the latest bulletin from the nursery suggests they're doing well. The pohutukawa are around 0.8m and should be around the recommended 1m minimum planting height within a couple of months. The totara are taking longer, but council arborists expect them to be ready in time for next year's planting season.

This, of course, is all presupposing the new council goes along with the arrangements it has inherited from its predecessor. Let's hope it leaves well alone.

The choice of trees and the number to be planted was the subject of exhaustive - and exhausting - consultation with members of the public, tree experts and tangata whenua.

The decision to plant a mixed grove of One Tree Hill-sourced pohutukawa and totara seedlings was uncontroversial and generally accepted.

None of the early decision-making needs revisiting except, that is, for the ongoing yearly maintenance bill. That, we can't afford.

The $40,000 of earlier reports was surely a mistake. Perhaps here's an opportunity for the local community to join in. For example, the Greenlane car dealers could ferry school kids up there with watering cans and plant food regularly to tend to the trees.

And if, in the end, none of the new trees survives, my green-fingered Herald colleague Bernard Orsman could have the answer waiting in his backyard.

He returned from the felling of the old pine in October 2000 with a souvenir seed cone. From that he has raised three thriving descendants. Ever civic-minded, he's happy to see one return to whence it came. In fact, he might hand over all three. They do look a bit out of place in tropical Grey Lynn.

Feature: Tree on the Hill