The Yarra Glen tree (you know the one). Photo: James Coleman.
The ACT Government kicked off Canberra Tree Week for the first time in 2014 as an annual event celebrating all things trees. This year, it runs between 29 April and 7 May, and what better tree to look at than the large lone conifer on Yarra Glen, now facing an uncertain future?
Chances are you’ve driven past it hundreds of times.
Rising from the grass median strip like a giant green pom-pom near the Carruthers Street overpass between Curtin and Hughes, this tree has reached icon status among southern Canberrans due to the fact it’s just always been there.
Nearby residents are now campaigning to save it as Stage 2B of light rail charts a course down this very strip within the next 10 years on its way from Commonwealth Avenue to Woden.
The Curtin Residents Association has been invited to join the government’s Light Rail Community Reference Group, designed to “improve understanding of community considerations, issues, concerns, and social and environmental priorities relating to the Light Rail to Woden project”.
Yarra Glen Homestead. Photo: Curtis Campbell.
President Chris Johnson told Region the Association is “strongly in favour” of keeping the tree.
“Both to show a sense of the short history of the area and as a symbol to show that trees and their canopy are very important in suburban and urban settings,” he said.
“I would strongly urge planning to take full account of this tree.”
Another, Frances McGee from Hughes, has lobbied for it to be placed under heritage protection due to its connection to one of the ACT’s oldest homesteads.
The tree was originally one of many in the garden of the Yarra Glen Homestead, bought off a World War I veteran by George Campbell (related to the Campbells of Duntroon Estate fame) and his new wife Nancy Reid in 1928.
George Campbell and his son, with conifer trees behind him.
The two-bedroom, fibro-cement cottage – with attached bathroom – stood under today’s Carruthers Street overpass, surrounded by an orchard, vegetable garden, sheep and wheat paddocks, and a lot of imported trees.
“We felt that if we had a nice garden, people wouldn’t notice the house very much,” one of George and Nancy’s sons, Curtis Campbell, said.
Curtis and his older brother Robert still live in Canberra and shared their thoughts on how the city has become a “blooming mess”.
“There’s graffiti all over the shops, weeds in the gutters, and that’s before we mention the potholes,” he told Region.
The family home might have been demolished in the 1960s to make way for the district of Woden, but Curtis said “it’s wonderful” one tree has survived.
“We used to play in those trees as kids,” he reminisced while poring through his mother’s photo album.
“Near those trees, Dad tried to build an air-raid shelter during World War II. He got down to probably about 10 feet when he struck solid rock and that was that.
“I won’t be here by the time the tram comes through, but I don’t want to see [the tree] go.”
Curtis Campbell standing by the ACT Heritage plaque on the corner of Carruthers and Allan streets. Photos: James Coleman.
In a statement, the ACT Government said assessments of the area have “not yet determined if the tree would need to be removed” and that “impacts to heritage and landscaping will be further assessed as part of the broader Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process”.
“There will be a series of engagements with the community in the future to seek feedback as these plans evolve,” a spokesperson said.
“Large sections of the Adelaide Avenue and Yarra Glen Drive median, where the track will be established, are devoid of trees, and the ACT Government will assess the opportunities to plant a significant number of new trees as part of a landscape plan for the project that will be further developed with community input and the NCA.”
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