CHRISTCHURCH AND ITS TREES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19063, 27 July 1927, Page 11

CHRISTCHURCH AND ITS TREES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —I am glad that someone has awakened to the fact that the weeping willow is not the only tree that can grace a river bank. At the same time there are many worse trees than the weeper, and though it may be monotonous it is at least not offensive. I shudder to think what our "beautifiers" might do if left too much to their own sweet devices. We have our rock-edgings (ugh!), and we might easily see a hundred yards of bank on which every tree was of a different species, and their only claim to be , there the fact that they were uncommon and of an unusual shape. In the latter half of last century the monkey puzzle was a fine example of this sort of taste. However wo may not come to much harm over our trees, but we are certainly threatened by the invasion of that doubtful blessing of Nature, the shrub. The shrub may be very well in its best milieu, which is in a dense mass on a steep hillside, but surely it would be out of place on our riverbank and in our park. What can be more beautiful than just deciduous trees, and green grass,unless it be trees, grass, and wild flowers? "With the exception of bulbs, the latter are, so far as I know, out of the question, and if we had bulbs, we should probably see them planted out in regularly spaced, beds cut in the shape of new moons «and hearts, which would be a ,worse calamity than the shrub. Therefore I put in a. plea that very great discretion be. used in the replacement of the willows and that our grass be left unspoilt by scrubby excrescences.— Yours, etc., SIMFLICITAS, July 26th, 1927. • TO THE EDITOa 0 J THE PBES3. Sir, —I was very pleased to read the two letters in your paper signed "A Resident" and "A Resident of Sixty Years," and as there is a movement on foot to carry out some much 1 - needed reforms on thebanks of thej river, I would like to voice the opinions of artists, who are in search of the picturesque and fail to find it on the upper reaches of the Avon owing to the undue preponderance of weeping willows. Besides our "own" artists, I have had the opportunity of meeting most of the. English artists who have visited Christchurch, and they, one and. all, condemn the willows, as being not in any jsense paintable. •• I notice_ that the . City Council suggests planting a silver birch and a weeper alternately on the lower reaches. But that won't do at all; the effect will be bad in the extreme. There are other trees of a more varied and beautiful form that will go better with the birch. It has always been a puzzle to me why the willow, should be so much admired by a great many people. No artist of repute that I know of has ever made it the motif of a picture, and no ijoet has ever sung its praises.— Yours, etc., WEARY OF WILLOWS.