Tauranga Historical Society: Just take an Aspen: Unleafing a local headache

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

"Aspen Reserve", on the corner of Willow and McLean Street, was once a lone field in the middle of town with a single, and rather magnificent, Aspen Tree. Local lore told of a soldier who, sometime around 1865, dismounted his charge, said something very gallant (probably), and then plunged his riding crop into the soil*.

Site of Aspen Reserve on Google Earth

The soldiery part is possible, the 1300m2 site was once part of a larger military camp occupied by the 43rd Monmouthshire Light Infantry Regiment and the 68th Durham Light Infantry Regiment during the period around the Battle at Pukehinahina in 1864. Presumably, no one ever un-plunged the riding crop, as it grew into "The Aspen Tree" of Tauranga. And this despite actually being an Eastern Cottonwood (Poplar Deltoides Virginiana), a soft wood not well suited to acting as a crop, or switch if you're American.

Coincidently this area once had a shelter belt, planted in the 1860s to protect the gardens of the Church Missionary Society’s Maori Boys’ School, part of Te Papa Mission Station and as it happens, Eastern Cottonwoods make good shelter belts. A more likely, and less interesting explanation, is that the Armed Constabulary planted it, with nothing more than a few grunts. The New Zealand Tree Register holds that "the earliest distribution recorded (or the eastern cottonwood poplar), and no doubt responsible for the rapid spread of the tree, was made by the Armed Constabulary about 1865. Cuttings were planted around the blockhouses and redoubts of the Land War period".

Age saw the trunk of the magnificent tree hollowing out over time but The Aspen still grew steadily enough, recalling those gallant words and replacing rotted wood each year with new growth. The time would come however when ungallant words would be levelled against it. Locals complained about the leaves the tree dumped and the downy, fluffy seeds that took to the winds and affected allergy sufferers all over town. In 2007 a cavity in the Aspen tree was set on fire during Guy Fawkes. A branch also fell from the tree which resulted in five metres being pruned from its top canopy.

On January 17, 2011, a branch weighing eight tonnes broke off the tree and fell onto McLean Street, barely missing parked vehicles. This was very serious indeed. By 2011, parking had become an almost sacrosanct right of all good and decent people. In the days that followed, the Aspen underwent substantial pruning, with 30 tonnes of branches removed and 16 metres trimmed from its then 34-meter height. The wood obtained from the pruning was given to the Tauranga City Sunrise Lions Club, which sold it as part of a fundraising effort.

A subsequent inspection uncovered the Aspen's critical condition. Experts determined that the tree was on the brink of collapse due to extensive internal and external rot, along with root failure. Deemed beyond rescue, Aspen's fate was sealed in May 2011 with a 6-5 vote by the Tauranga City Council.

The much-enlarged riding crop of 1865 was felled by 8 am on the morning of Thursday 7 July 2011.

A 30cm square ‘book-shaped’ piece was deposited with Tauranga City Library by council arborist Steve Webb and when in 2022 the library moved into the old Goddard Centre, this block, briefly Ams 383, was fashioned into 30 different riding crops and given away to children all around the region. Okay, that last bit was completely made up. In truth, it was transferred into the care of the Heritage Collection in July 2021.

All the library has left are photographs.