Te Mata Park Little Redwood Grove during the planting in 1974 and now in 2024.
Te Mata Park Little Redwood Grove during the planting in 1974 and now in 2024.
In 1974, a group of Hastings Rotary Club members took to Te Mata Park with their spades, hammers and stakes to plant a grove of redwood trees.
Some trees died due to dry conditions, but many of them thrived and approximately 135 trees now stand about 45m tall and are known as the Little Redwoods.
Located in the Te Heu Valley near Webb’s Bush the grove is a favourite spot of many in Hawke’s Bay.
Members of the Rotary Club of Hastings and representatives from Te Mata Park Trust gathered in the Little Redwoods on Friday to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the planting.
David Davidson the chairman of the community services committee of the Rotary Club of Hastings in 1974 was at the planting and at age 86 returned for the celebration.
“I don’t think in our wildest dreams we could have realised how popular it would be.”
The provenance of the grove is intertwined with the Rotary network, both locally and in California.
Propagated by the late Don Wilson, a local Rotarian, using seeds sent from the Redwood Rotary Club of California.
Davidson, a retiree, was 36 when the trees were planted and said the celebration was filled with mixed emotions.
David Davidson helped to plant the Little Redwood grove and was amazed at how enormous and popular they had become.
“The people I planted them with are mostly not there anymore.”
He said he was delighted to see the trees 50 years on, but wished Don Wilson, who nurtured the trees for two or three years before they were planted, could have seen them.
He said Wilson had done a great job with the trees and at the time “everybody saw them and loved them and wanted them”.
Davidson admitted while he remembered the planting day as being hard work he couldn’t recall much else about the maintenance of the trees in the years after.
The trees thrived in the Hawke’s Bay environment and Davidson said a few had to be “culled or thinned out a bit”.
“To see the number of people including school kids walking through today really made me feel delighted that our vision was more than exceeded.”
Davidson said he was fascinated with the Redwood tree species for its interesting method of propagation.
“They have got very think bark and they are virtually fireproof, but when a fire goes through .. .the trees propagate and they scatter the seed and the new generation comes.”
He said looking at the trees now he could not believe how enormous they were, and was proud of the work put into the grove.
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities.
