Tupare's tall trees an autumn delight
By Mitch Graham
It’s been the time of year when visitors pause beneath Tupare’s tall trees, delighted to be among the warm hues of autumn.
Tupare has many aged deciduous trees which display a variety of colour as their leaves tumble to the lawn, laying down a leafy quilt of amber, burgundy and golden tones.
As winter grows closer and more leaves fall from the branches, we can look up and observe the entwined, gnarled limbs of the large maples, ginkgos, oaks, dawn redwoods and dove trees. Many exhibit a fascinating framework as each limb stretches out through the canopy towards the sunshine to gain nourishment and good health.
All of Tupare’s trees, including evergreens and conifers, have a unique character. One of the most appealing is our black beech, or Nothofagus solandri, which towers over the Gardener’s Cottage.
Black beeches are a native evergreen, widespread throughout New Zealand in lowland to montane forests from East Cape to South Canterbury. They’re not found on Mt Taranaki, though, because of our recent volcanic history and generous rainfall.
Tupare’s black beech was planted in the late 1930s and is now 22 metres high with a spread of 12 metres. This equates to a lot of growing in a short time for a tree that doesn’t naturally inhabit this location.
A feature of the black beech during spring is the male flowers, displaying red anthers to give the tree a deep orange glow when viewed from afar.
Immediately after flowering, our tree sheds a fine carpet of fawn coloured leaves on to the pathway. I hesitate to sweep these up, as it reminds me of the soft forest floor of the beech forests in the foothills of the Southern Alps.
Another treat is to stand under the spread of the tree, look up into the canopy to see that it hosts a community of mosses, lichens and ferns and even tiny fungi emerging from the dark furrowed bark of the trunk.
Our tree is the home of a young akapuka, or Grisilinia lucida, growing as an epiphyte in the union of two large limbs. Over the next few decades, the akapuka will send down a long slender stem, eventually taking root at the beech’s base. As the tree grows old and runs out of puff, the akapuka will take its place at Tupare.
Tupare’s Black Beech is a joy for garden visitors. It gives us year-round interest as it changes subtlety through the seasons, at this time of the year providing the perfect complement the warm hues of late autumn.
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Mitch Graham (left) is Garden Manager - Tupare for the Taranaki Regional Council This column was published in the Taranaki Daily News on 3 June 2011 |
