BEAUTY SPOT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 137, 12 June 1941, Page 6

BEAUTY SPOT

TREES IN MEMORY

DOMINION AIRMEN

AT WHENUAPAI AIR BASE

A "woodland of remembrance," planted with trees from the countries where New Zealand airmen are serving in the war, will be a part of the Whenuapai air base of the future. In a tree-planting scheme, which will make the base one of the beauty spots of Auckland, native and other trees are being grouped in massed effects or placed in avenues, where, in years to come, they will give shelter from wintry blasts or from the blazing summer sun. The whole of the administrative and residential area, covering many acres, is being laid out on landscape lines, to convert the flat basin where the aerodrome is formed from one swept by the winds to one of normal atmospheric conditions and scenic charm. ' In planning the scheme, the Public Works Department and the Air Board have enlisted the advice and guidance of the Auckland District Council of the New Zealand Institute of Horticulture. Colonrful Avenues A beginning with the planting was made last winter, and the work will be completed during the next two months. Flanking the main entrance drive will be a native plantation, while the main avenue through the base will be fringed by puriris, 30 on each side. Crossing this avenue will be another with a similar number of silver birch, and in the background, as one looks along the silver birch avenue, will be a stand of kauris. This is the effect envisaged for 30 or perhaps 50 years hence. For colourful effect in the early spring there will be 100 flowering cherries along one of the longer avenues, and contrasts at other points will be provided by groups of scarlet oaks, copper beeches, Oriental planes, liquid ambers, white birches, maples, eucalyptus, prunus, magnolias, cedars, weeping willows, and, in a small valley through which runs a stream, 100 tree ferns. On one side of the area will be a massed show of golden wattle, also viewed down a main avenue, while in the exposed places between the hangars will be rows of phoenix palms and shrubs of hardy types. The bays and corners at various points will be planted with shrubs and small flowering trees of many varieties. Wherever the scheme permits, use is being made, appropriately, of plants and trees with flowers suggesting Air Force blue, one of which,

the agapanthus, will mark the edges of numerous banks along the pathways. In a snug and fertile corner will be a citrus plantation, including many trees of New Zealand grapefruit. Hobsonville's Scheme Older established Hobsonville aerodrome is carrying out similar ideas. The avenue extending from the main entrance to the hutments is being planted on both sides with the beautiful Cootamundra wattle, while other features of the comprehensive scheme will include magnolias, peppers, yellow cassias and others, to give a succession of flowering groups all the year round. Almonds, cotoneasters, silver birches, copper beeches, are only a few of the many attractive trees

which will contribute to the general effect. A stand of 260 bentham cypress trees will form a windbreak on the exposed side of the camp, while pohutukawas on the cliff tops above the foreshore and 50 native trees will screen the mud banks of the upper harbour at low tide. Ferns will be grouped in various bays and under the water tower. At the edge of the flying field will be large numbers of azaleas and hydrangeas; both the older and new dwarf varieties will be strongly represented around the camp. Auckland is not alone in beautifying its aerodromes, as the movement represented at Whenuapai and Hobsonville has a counterpart in many other parts of the Dominion, and also, to a degree, at the military camps. Fully grown trees have been preserved where possible in the formation of 'dromes and camps, and arc being incorporated in the scheme.