Arabic version: أشجار سيكويا صغيرة تحتفي بمئوية متنزه سانت ديفيد
According to ABC News, Hobart’s St David’s Park marked 100 years as a public park on Friday with the planting of young giant sequoias. Dozens of people attended a garden party and watched one of two replacement trees being planted, while a band performed in the park’s Victorian-era rotunda.
The replacement sequoias are between five and seven years old. They follow the removal in April of two heritage-listed giant sequoias that were 88 years old. The older trees had been planted in 1937 to commemorate the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, but declined after vandalism, fire and other factors. Attempts to revive them were unsuccessful, and they were removed for safety reasons.
City of Hobart open spaces manager Sean Black described the replanting as meaningful, saying the council had faced an “extremely difficult” decision to remove the earlier trees. The new sequoias have been positioned elsewhere in the park to provide more sun and preserve open space and natural light for visitors. The council’s arboriculture team will monitor the young trees as they become established; Mr Black said they will take 15 to 20 years to start maturing.
St David’s Park began as a burial ground in 1804. The cemetery closed in 1872, later fell into disrepair and reopened as a park in 1926. Timber from the removed sequoias is also set for new uses: Hobart City Council received more than 60 applications to repurpose it for projects including artistic sculptures, outdoor seating, musical instruments and scientific research.
