EIGHT MILLION TREES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 180, 1 July 1937, Page 10

EIGHT MILLION TREES.

CANBERR A PLANTINGS. Canberra is busy maintaining its reputation as the Garden City of the Commonwealth. Teams of workmen aro preparing new plantations where thousands of trees and shrubs will be planted in the present season. To protect and beautify the new suburb of Wakefield Gardens, which has been built recently to cater for Canberra’s rapid development, a main plantation a mile long and from 00 to 100 feet wide is now being prepared. 'l'be trees comprise wattles, oucalvpts, and conifers. Other trees and shrubs are being planted in the streets and the recreation reserves. The completion of the present plantinn- within the next few months will nice Canberra a total of 5,000,000 planted trees and shrubs, of which about half grow in the city area, and the remainder in other parts ol the Federal Capital Territory. Many thousands of wattles will (lower towards the middle of August and continue in bloom for over a month, painting the avenues golden. A thick licit of wattle trees at the rear of Parliament House makes a paiticulaily beautiful display while from the panoramic viewpoints of the capital, golden clumps may be seen mingling everywhere with the greenery of the gardens and plantations. The planting of eight million trees and shrubs in itself represents a gigantic undertaking when it is remembered that the average hole to bo (lug for the planting is at least three feet square and of equal depth.. The total of all the holes would equal a trench three feet wide and three feet deep from Perth to Brisbane, with nearly enough left over to reach from Sail Francisco to New York.