Only 3 Days To Go -- But You Can Still Meet The Trees: Meet the Dudley Street Oaks
22 March 2016
In a way you're already met these wonderful trees since they feature on the video, but I thought I'd like to introduce them to you in person.
The trees are Quercus x heterophylla, aka Bartrams oak, which are rare in both the Christchurch and New Zealand context.
Arguably, they also constitute the single most significant feature in the Dudley Street Character Area, which has just been approved as part of the Independent Hearing Panel's decisions on the Replacement Plan's residential zones.
Yet under the Council's proposed tree provisions, the Dudley Street oak avenue will lose its "notable" status --- when clearly, it still warrants such recognition.
With only 3 days left until this Give A Little ends, I thought the importance of the trees and this campaign has been encapsulated by Christchurch-based author, Helen Lowe, who wrote:
"A huge part of Christchurch’s built environment, particularly heritage buildings, has been lost as a direct consequence of the 2010 – 2011 earthquakes. By and large, though, the city’s trees, including its wonderful collection of Heritage and Notable trees, have survived the destruction — and provide a great sense of continuity and also reassurance: that something of value has not only survived but continues to flourish.
As you may know, I live in one of the areas that was harder hit by the earthquakes, so in the middle of so much destruction and loss the trees have been a tremendous comfort and inspiration to (also) keep going."
The Dudley Street oaks are one of the tree groups that have given Helen that sense of continuity and reassurance in the aftermath of the earthquakes. She, however, says that a Christchurch poet, Tom Weston, has more powerfully captured something of what she feels, with these lines in his poem titled "Aftershock":
"...
when trees fall in and try to keep
their feet, pushing back
on despair,
as the last word before rapture
takes me out?
I’m waiting for it now.
And what should I do about hope?”
Helen says she really likes the idea of the trees pushing back on despair, both at the physical and metaphorical level. And that for her this whole process has been a reiteration of the poem's last question, over and over again:
"And what should I do about hope?"