KEY POINTS:
Wellington eat your heart out! For years I've been rather envious of the Ian Athfield-designed copper and steel nikau palms that graced the capital's civic square - and, more recently, the entrance to Wellington Airport.
But now we Aucklanders are going one better and starting to fill the central city with the real thing.
Over recent weeks, groves of real live nikau have, triffid-like, started sprouting up through the Queen St chaos, stamping an instant new identity on the golden mile.
I'm the first to admit that a year or so back when plans were announced to line the main street with these native palms, I was unenthusiastic. The runty ragtag orphan nikau that struggled to survive at the corner of Queen and Victoria Sts hardly seemed to support the plan. Not only did it appear sickly, but at shorter than verandah height and with a reputation for snail-like growth, it lacked the grand statement a specimen tree should make. It was only later that I got to appreciate the plantings in Karangahape Rd.
But the new nikau dwarf the pioneer runt, which, by way of an aside, does seem to have bucked up a bit with the arrival of its new mates.
The most spectacular of the newcomers are at the mouth of Vulcan Lane, one a slender, split-trunk model that, even in the chaos of the ongoing paving work, promises to transform the whole character - for the better - of this old mall.
What we Aucklanders should probably keep to ourselves is exactly where these forest dwellers - average height over 5m - came from. Raiding the countryside of both islands for the most suitable specimens, which is what happened, might be misunderstood by our country cousins, who already have a jaundiced view of the way we Aucklanders wave our money about.
Exactly how much we waved about is a mystery. The price list of the contracting company, the Specimen Tree Company, offers nikau at the bargain price of $275 plus GST. But that's for a nursery grown seedling around 1.1m high. The company wouldn't divulge the cost of a Queen St size model, or where they come from.
But insiders say most came from Taranaki and around Karamea on the west coast of the South Island. Apparently the man from the company prowled rural areas for palms where forest clearing still goes on, then made the landowner an offer he couldn't refuse.
In the case of Queen St, the search was for specimen trees growing in exposed, sunny positions which proved they had the hardiness to survive their new, barren home. This requirement rather ruled out the local Waitakere Ranges variety - even if they could have been smuggled past Waitakere City Mayor Bob Harvey and his greenie mates.
The problem with the local variety is they have shorter trunks and leaves than those down country, and they're also rather effete, preferring their bush environment rather than strutting their stuff on Auckland's main drag.
Plantsman Graeme Platt, in last month's Commercial Horticulture went as far as to say "while West Auckland nikau always looked reasonable enough in their natural bush setting, the performance of this form under cultivation proved to be pathetic. In addition to poor form, the West Auckland palms burned badly out in full sun and wind . . ".
Elsewhere they breed them tougher, tall slender trees thriving out in the open as far south as Pitt Island in the Chathams.
Just how old the Queen St trees are is something of a guess; one expert suggested 80 plus years, another, over 100.
Certainly they're slow starters, not forming a distinct trunk, says Mr Platt, until aged 13 to 15 years and taking 20-25 years to reach 2m high.
You might recall how the planners originally came up with a zany plan for artificial tui feeding machines for Vulcan Lane.
Having been laughed out of court with that idea, could nikau be their revenge? Nikau fruit, it seems, are a wood pigeon's favourite desert.
Botanist Peter de Lange wrote recently of watching pigeons at dinner.
"Whole fronds [were] weighed down by pigeon faeces choked with nikau seed.
"The forest was alive with the sounds of scoffing, regurgitating and defecating of these overfed birds, whose normally metallic green breast feathers were covered in scarlet juice."
