“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, History
When spring comes and the Jacarandas turn purple, I remind myself how delicate our regard for these trees is. Precious when in bloom, the small tree would have stayed forgotten in its native forests otherwise.
The most famous local specimen, in the USyd Quadrangle, has marked students’ academic doom for decades in its display. The original tree died on October 28, 2016, having been planted in 1931. The present is a clone, and it is already steeped in nostalgia. When I walk past it I feel my shoulders tremble as if I were being breathed on by a big moustached man; “if you don’t study before…”
Like many Australians, I suspect, it astonished me growing up to learn that jacarandas were in fact native to south-central South America, and that we had our own blossoming trees in plentiful quantities which received very little attention. The university has attempted to rectify this by planting an Illawarra flame tree opposite the Quad’s jacaranda, and I admire its intense red flowers at the same time of year. Its indigeneity makes me feel guilty in seeing it as ‘new.’
Although it’s difficult to believe in good actions by institutions in 2024, I was impressed by the Biodiversity Management Plan and Walanga Wingara Mura Design Principles that USyd is pursuing. The first will be complete in 2025 and will require biodiversity addressing in all site management plans. The second has seen the planting of native trees and plants, and now 1,400 of 2,000 trees on campus are native.
I was saddened during 2020 when the local council I then lived in introduced its Green Streets Plan to the suburb. They planted natives, but my favourite was the NSW Christmas Bush. They had chosen to plant a row of the shrub along a street between my home and the park, and as I walked along that street I imagined the red avenue being slowly grown here. I already admired the non-native flora — cherry trees and magnolias — growing on the street. It could only be enhanced by our beautiful native plants.
Unfortunately, yet predictably, many died. Some slowly rotted, others were suddenly colourless. But the greatest disappointment were those which simply disappeared; stolen or dug up and thrown out. According to Sutherland Shire Council, nearly 14,000 trees have been planted in the LGA over the course of the project’s life. “The majority of them last a long time [but] the ones that do the best are those that are planted [near] folks who water and look after them. There were also some places where the locals were very hostile to the project and immediately removed the trees, illegally, after we replaced them,” said a council contractor on the condition of anonymity. “Some die due to lack of maintenance.”
The activism of councils reminded me of the recent drilling and poisoning of nine Port Jackson fig trees at Balmoral in February. It was especially refreshing to see the strong response of the local council to the attempts to kill the trees, and to install banners to block viewlines and stymie the attempts of local residents to increase their housing value. The question, however, is why the councils of Sydney do not take such a strong line to protect trees more generally . While Balmoral is unique, to what extent would the media outcry have followed to other trees, less famous, less photogenic?
One excellent example of this phenomenon concerns the tree cover in Western Sydney. For this reason, I turn to Fairfield, and a little known secret. The Bland Oak may sound unappetising, but it is the name of the largest tree of its kind in Sydney. Planted by William Bland, an early colonial settler, the tree sits in Oakdene Park in Carramar. A campaign by Frank Carbone, the Mayor of Fairfield City Council, to get the tree listed on the National Register of Significant Trees was ultimately successful in 2018. The tree itself sits closely beside the street, the park a standard vacant space in the suburbia of Western Sydney. Again, I felt almost guilty of believing it to be out of place. In historic and cultural terms, it was introduced and foreign, and yet in 2024 there is no denial that Western Sydney would benefit from more tree cover that trees of this sort uniquely provide. Interestingly, in 2020, the Bland Oak’s acorns were taken and grown into seedlings, with the intention of planting them around Fairfield City. However, despite a promise on the council website to “keep residents informed” there seems not to have been any further movement, though apparently acorns are still being collected.
Polding Street North in Fairfield runs from The Horsley Drive to the bridge over Prospect Creek at Yennora. Four lanes wide, it has only narrow footpaths and is searing hot in summer. The streets here are sparse. As a child I always associated them with heat, and the red brick houses made the whole district appear more desert-like. “Over the time the tree cover decreased as big trees in backyards were cut down and replaced with smaller shrubs. People used to have more fruit trees. Now it’s more decorative plantings,” said my father when I asked him if it had always been like that. He told me about two yellow cypresses he had had, and pines in peoples’ backyards. The streets now seem to be characterised by their palms. But if the attempt has been to evoke Queensland and its lush north they have not succeeded, as the palms provide no shade from the dry heat. But a simple fact is large trees take time to grow; estimates for the Bland Oak’s total projected lifespan stretch to 300 years. It is highly unlikely most of Sydney’s streets could ever be unchanging, or their residents forgiving, enough for anywhere near that length of time.
Protest action is fraught on trees in Sydney. Saving Sydney’s Trees, a community organisation, advocates, educates, and occasionally protests on the issue. Its latest effort is to protect a site at Budock Street in Randwick by making submissions to council and disseminating photos of the lot on its Facebook page. “SST started in response to the Heritage surrounding the Anzac Memorial Figs that were under threat from the South East Light Rail. The Heritage there was unmistakable as these trees were a memorial to the fallen of WW1 and returned servicemen,” says Barbara Hogg, Chairperson. However, in response to my questions of actual action to be taken to increase canopy cover, she took a political bent. “The biggest culprit that we have to worry about is planning and infrastructure….The new planning proposals of the Minns Govt is an example of restrictions on room to grow the needed canopy and vegetation. The result of this will be an increase in hard surface temperatures and heat island creation and less trees to mitigate the impacts,” she said. “It makes no sense to us.”
My favourite tree in Sydney is not in Sydney, though it is close by and the haunt of many day trippers. Wedged between two panels of the Illawarra Escarpment, Minnamurra Rainforest National Park is renowned for its red cedar trees. Tall, broad and covered in moss, they are imposing yet tranquil. Their sheer size and age (specimens can beat Bland Oak at 500 years) give them a distinctive atmosphere. It seems to me that it is only in a large, established tree such as this, that the contemplative effects of trees are at their highest, and the general nostalgia affecting jacarandas is less. Logged excessively, called ‘red gold,’ their survival in the park is a treasure. But it also struck me, in this oasis, that this place was in itself delicate – an outpost of the natural world in a place designed increasingly for human habitation.
When I began assembling a list of trees I liked in Sydney my first thought went to a tree that many would enjoy; the Wollemi Pine. Sitting in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney, the specimen is small and on hot days especially does not look impressive next to the bitumen. But year after year, the simple fact of its rarity and its age draws. While I sympathise with SST’s anti-development line, I cannot believe that the solution to conserving Sydney’s trees can be achieved by a simple change of government. What is required is a celebration of trees for their intrinsic value, their character, their sense of place. It is in these famous trees that we find places. There is nothing delicate in a belief like that.
