THE CITY BEAUTIFUL.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 481, 14 April 1909, Page 4

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL.

: TO IMPROVE "THOSE BARREN I HILLS.!' ■ ■"•■TREES FOR LAMBTON QUAY. EXPERT AND OTHER HINTS. Tho barren, brown hills oE Wellington, with their scarred, hideous bluffs not oven .covered by tho grasses that thinly clothe the slopes, furnish a 1 constant gibo to strangers to the city, and aro a. cause of -mortification- ! to those of its residents who 1 have any senso-of the aesthetic. Many of ; the panoramic Views of Wellington—those . across the red roofs and tho harbour from Kelburne; across the sea from Oriental Bay, and others —aro ' beyond doubt beautiful, but Wellington,, seen from an incoming steamer, or from most near view-points, is undeniably ugly. Man has dono a good deal to introduce new forms of ugliness, and scarcoly anything to improve -tho natural features of tho place. A great contrast is offered by Christchurch m this respect. .When the Wellington hills wero beautiful with bush, tho site of Christchurch was n reedy, desolate, flax growing swamp. To- • <tay tho'southern city charms. the, eyo with! /' rows and plantations of diversified trees, and with lawns and gardens in.every available place. A few trees havo. been planted in Wellington, but they aro of hardly any variety, and represont only a small fraction of what might bo dono; a few small plots have been planted with flowers and shrubs, but the, shrubs'can' scarcely get ab'o'ro the ground before a municipal official, whose ideals of natural' beauty seem to be tho figures in geometry; begins to pruno then) .'; into set. shapes, and thereafter prunes so steadily that they never get a chance to . grow. ■; : ' » '' '■ i ■ ( An Object-Lesson. "With tho bare wounded hillsides that aro an eyesore round Oriental 'Bay, on tho ■Itarori J toad, and at Brooklyn, may be contrasted the blaze' of.colour .which is presented, for a large part of tho year, by the steep bluff at Clifton, at tho entrance to Sumnor, Christchurch. This was formerly a bare, barren-piece of hillside, swept by winds, and as, unpromising in respect of vegetation ,as any, portion' of tlio hills, of Wellington; During; I 'the' last, few years •houses .have been built there, and in the ' summertime the bluff is a mass of scarlet and golden blossoms', which must be conspicuous miles away. '. , .-, ... .No doubt water and cultivation, the result of settlement, havo had a good deal to do with transforming Clifton, but it. is quite possible to adorn the 1 Wellington hills. , Plantations of suitablo trees' on the hills 'about Wellington would serve several valuable purposes. They wouldt bo a pleasure to residents, whoso sense of-beauty would . .become more developed when it had more to feed on; the adornment of the city would ■ attract visitors, which,is tho same thing as '-.- attracting money: health and climate Would be benefited, as'feas been tho experience of other cities,. and a revenue might.be ob- ; tained some day' from surplus timber.'•' Dr. .Newman, one of the; candidates for tho-' Mayoralty, has been, sufficiently far-seeing ..to-include the planting of tho city as one of the planks of his platform, and a representative'of this paper-called on him to obtain details of his scheme. Dr. Newman's Scheme.' ' Dr. Newman said' that' when the' first ' settlers came here, nil, round, the ■ shore of : the 'Wellington Harbour the hills were clothed with bright green forests ~'■ and native shrubs, right down to tho water's edge. Ngahaurang'a and Kaiwarra ' gorges were perfectly lovely. "In tho course of G9 ' years," he continued, "we have ruthlessly ' destroyed, all tho .vegetation on the hillsides. We have left tho bills untouched until now the beautiful forest js replaced by native grasses, which 'dry up every, summer and -„ leavo all the hills bare and uglyi, To visitors to Wellington, especially by sea, this process has changed this once beautiful harbour into 1 one of ugliness. As one • comes in .by . the .. steamer, :■■ tho', view is of hills on both -sides covered with grass; whioli during tie summer montiis makes them bare and hideous. As a friend of mine . said, it reminded him of the Strait of Bab-el- . Mandeb. .My idea is that little by little, during a number,of years,-wo should-plant these bare, places,, not all oyer, .but with, clusters of trees giving them a. park-like appearance. Then, again, along the.AVell'ngton-Hutt road, we have not only cleared away the bush, but ; ,we have made hideous scars of bare rock, and ■ e r e r.Vwhere the- roads arc ugly. ■ I propose that ■ all these scars and ugly, roadsides should ba planted, in. some < cases, with grass, in some' : with me&embryantheniuin, or with broom, or i with anything to : raider-them bright and , green. ■■■■ . . ~ ( " Begin With Mount Victoria." " Then tako Mount Victoria. From Rose- ( Death past the -Flag Station,' out to' New- ■ town, it is a bare, ugly waste,, and very ! ■■. little planting has been done on it. My pro- ' posal is that wo should begin with this hill. - Wo have a very able corporation gardener, ' Mr. Glen, arid he'should be instructed to lay : out a plan for planting this in patches. Trees 1 . ,and shrubs will,grow very well here;'especi- 1 ally if the right kinds are chosen, and '■' planted tbiokly together, so as to - shelter ! • each other from the wind. Tho ground is I our own, thero is no cost for that. In the ' 1 winter-time, a skilled gardener, with a party ' , of unskilled'workmen, .could, at a small cost,. ' do a great.deal of planting. - Supposing wo ( spent_£3oo a'year for the next ten years, and ' the city can.well afford this small amount ' at tlio end of the time we should have .* forested. Mount Victoria, and made it a ' scone of beauty.. Later, wo might take the ' town Belt, along by Brooklyn, which is now i so bare. I believe m ten years' timo by this ! process we could plant so' many shrubs that ' Wellington would look quite a beautiful 1 place. Some 25 years ago, Councillor Logan < was an enthusiast in this work, and started J some of the present plantations, for ] instance the plantation along the Wades- ' town Road, which, with its walks and ' marvellous view of sea and land, is one of the ' most beautiful bits of scenery, in tho whole < , of Now Zealand;- . If Mount-Victoria were ' properly planted in the same way, and parks '- wero made,, it would become a source of great* c pleasure to people of tho citv. 1

. The City Proper. "In tho city itself there'aro many waste street corners, and all those should ho gradually planted with shrubs. Other cities i'n the Dominion aro steadily doing this work, hut in Wellington we have slumbered. ■ It has been said by hostilo critics that trees do not grow .well in Wellington, but in the early days thero were magnificent trees on Thorndon Flat and up the Tinakori Valley, so that we have only to replace them with the certainty that they will flourish. The mistake in Wellington in the past has been that .chiefly pine trees have been planted, and they are very sombre. When planting is commenced again skilled advico should be obtained. The Government is doing a large amount of afforestation and' an enormous amount of planting has boon done by private persons on the Canterbury Plains, with tho result that the scenery is much improved. The total cost of what I proposo to do," concluded Dr. Newman, " if spread over a number of years, and continued steadily, would be so small that it would not be Felt by the ratepayers, and the gain to Wellington woiild be enormous. Even from a money point of view it would pay handsomely, since a beautiful city attracts visitors."

Tho Troes to Plant. A local botanist who was seen upon the subject gave somo useful suggestions 'as to the : kind of trees to plant. The slopes of I Mount Victoria, lying towards tho sun and exposed to heavy winds, aro not suitablo to tho growth of native vegetation, but pinus tuberculata, a much more handsomo tree than pinus insignis, should grow upon thein well. Gums, cabbage trees, flax, agaves, aloes, and any of tho showy succulent plants should flourish, especially ■ tho giant agave. One of tho best places about Wellington to reforest with native trees is tho slopes of tho Tinakori hills, which would bo excolksntly suited, to such a growth. They aro largely covered now, t in summer, with tho gold of broom and gorso. Tho unsightly bluffs which haw been mentioned might bo covered with of tho moro hridit-flowered.-varieties.

| of mescmbryanthem, whoso scarlet and golden hues would bo very picturesque, and thesmall Australian acacias, which flower very freely, would also adorn thorn well. Tim great tree for strcot-plnntiiig in all parts of the world is tho piano, winch has tho advantage* over most other trees that its roots do not affect tho pavement. Tho funions boulevards in Paris aro planted, with planes, which can also bo seen to good elfect m AA'angnmii. Tho plane trees give a welcome sbado in summer, and in winter they are leafless. They could be planted orory. well at intervals nlong iJie lower part of Lambton Quay, close to the footpath, and in several other streets of tho city. Tho finest avenuo of trees in Now Zealand is admitted to bo tho ono in front of the museum in Christchurch It comprises chestnuts, sycamores, oaks, planes, and olms, most of which trees would grow in Wellington, though hardly perhaps to tho samo advantage. Thero aro somo streets in 'Wellington where probably trees would never grow, because they are such funnels for tho wind.

Position of tho. Boautifying Socioty. . Mr. Meek, secretary of tho Wellington Scenery Preservation and Tree-planting Society, told tho reporter that that society was originally started in 1895 with tho object of preserving tho scenery of Wellington, and later its scope was extended to include the planting of trees. For, some timo past tho City' Council has ma'do a grant to tho society to aid it in its work, hut previously it had been entirely dependent upon donations and members' subscriptions, which aro not 'argo. "AA'o have tried very hard to keep going," said Mr. Meek, "but the support wo have received has been falling off, so that we shall likely disband at tho annual mooting, which takes placo somo time this month: Last year, we decided to. continue for another twelve months to see if wo received any more encouragement from the. public, but this lias not been forthcoming." Considering tho financial state of the society it has dono a great deal of good work, which includes tho forming of a track up Mount Victoria, somo -planting at at tho back the Athletic Park, at Hargraves Street, and* at "Jacob's Ladder," or Church Street. "I think tho work of planting tho city reserves," said Mr. Meek, "is one which is of great importance to tho city, and it should no longer bo neglected." Mr. Samuel Brown's Viev/s. Mr. Samuel Brown is another strong advocate of planting trees in and about tho city, as part of a general policy of afforestation. In Dunodin, he states,, shrubs havo -been allowed to grow.up with very handsomo effect along the'middle- of somo of the wider roads, but in AA'cllington—and in no other city known to Mr. Brown —it is usual to stunt tlio plants with constant pruning, in a vain attempt to improve on nature. Trees planted many years ago in _ Newtown Park and other spots havo flourished very successfully, but in those- days too much was made of macrocarpa, with the, result that the city's grown plantations are very, monotonous in composition. If trees wero grown that seed themselves, and would need only to be thinned put lator, the expense of planting would be very moderate... When the .trees grow up they would afford shelter for smaller plants.' In Dunedin the red flowered ti-treo has been cultivated with much success.' The all-important thing, in : Mr. Brown's opinion, is to know what trees to plant on particular sites, arid ho suggests that, expert advice should bo obtained on this aspect, of the scheme."