A living legacy uprooted

August 9, 2008
Of all the damage wreaked by last week's storm, perhaps the most significant was to the precious historic trees of Isel Park in Stoke. Geoff Collett looks at the aftermath. -------------------- Peter Grundy likes to start his guided tours of Isel Park with a visit to two of its mightiest residents: a giant redwood, towering 39m, and an even taller torrey pine, at 43m possibly the biggest example of the species anywhere in the world. They are two of the oldest introduced trees in the country, awe-inspiring in anyone's language.
That's where he begins today's tour, too, although things are different now.
The redwood, a beautifully shaped sequoiadendron giganteum - the "guardian of the homestead", as it's known, for its prime and dominating position in front of historic Isel House - is minus half a dozen of its branches, the raw scars obvious high up the trunk. The damage is severe but should be survivable.
The huge pine just across the way is gone completely. Its trunk - maybe 1.7m wide at the base - has snapped like a pencil. The fallen giant smashed into the turf, across a creek and into a neighbouring backyard, just shaving the side of a house. And this is only the beginning.
Isel Park looks like it's been bombed. Here and there are, as Grundy puts it, "standing sticks" - naked trunks with their entire canopies blown out. Others stand seemingly intact, but closer inspection reveals shattered branches and trunks.
Some lean at crazy angles, still anchored in the ground but their roots wrenched and probably done for. And there are those that have simply upended, roots and all, tearing huge craters in the ground as they have tilted and then toppled under their own great weight, their exposed rootplates dwarfing any onlooker.
Much still stands. From a distance, the treeline is still dominant, towering above suburban Stoke. But those who know will immediately realise that all is not well. Within the park - although it is out of bounds to the public for now and probably for months, too dangerous to let people in - the Isel most Nelsonians know is in a terrible state. The pretty woodland of soft lawns, twisting paths, rhododendron walks, gentle glades and a stream-side stroll will never be the same as it was until Wednesday afternoon last week.
When the storm hit with its hurricane-force wind gusts, it smacked into Stoke with a special vengeance, tearing down Marsden Valley and ripping a tunnel through Isel Park.
Grundy, the Nelson City Council's horticultural supervisor, knew that morning that things could get bad. Isel - Nelson's, and one of New Zealand's, most significant collections of woodland trees - was closed during the morning as the southeasterly gale picked up momentum. Other than that, there was nothing to do but wait and see.
At 2.45pm, according to neighbours, the devastation peaked. A single huge gust tore through, and some of Nelson's finest trees - oaks, redwoods, cottonwoods, douglas firs, pines, macrocarpas - were destroyed, toppling or splintering in the face of the wind.
Many had stood for 160 years. Some were among the very first introduced trees in the country; many had provided the seeds and cuttings for nurserymen who sent Isel's progeny all around the land.
They were left to the city by James Marsden, son of Thomas. Thomas Marsden built his home - Isel House - here and indulged his deep love of trees almost as soon as he set foot on the land. One of the original European landowners in Stoke, he apparently received the first seeds for his woodland on New Year's Day 1849, when his mother-in-law gave him three pine cones, according to Sally Papps, who now lives in and cares for Isel House with husband Alistair.
Grundy says Marsden prevailed upon ships' captains and others bound for the fledgling town to bring seeds and seedlings from distant lands. The number of pines and redwoods suggests that more than a few had their origins in California, presumably accompanying those heading for the Nelson goldfields. In Nelson's mild climate and rich soils, they thrived - the now-fallen torrey pine was about three times the size it could be expected to reach in its natural sun-baked environment of southern California.
The significance of the Marsden plantings - carried out over three main spells, in 1850, 1856 and 1865 - was recognised early. When James Marsden died in 1926, part of the property was left to the Anglican diocese, but with strict instructions spelled out in his will: "Every possible care shall be taken of the forest trees, shrubs and plantations, especially the oaks, some of which are over 70 years old. The beeches, birches, hornbeams, cedars and many others are trees that should never be disturbed, and most will probably live for centuries.
"Many varieties of firs and pines, some of great girth and height, are very fine specimens of their respective kinds. It is absolutely necessary at times to thin and cut down trees, but this should always be done under the supervision of competent and experienced persons who know the value of trees, and never indiscriminately by ignorant or inexperienced people, as is so often the case at the present time in NZ."
The park as it is known today came into public ownership around 1960, and the city council has striven to uphold its part of Marsden's bargain.
Isel has by far the single biggest collection of protected heritage trees in the city - about 30 individual and grouped specimens before last week, almost twice the number of the next- biggest concentration, at Queen's Gardens.
Grundy estimates that maybe one-third of Isel's heritage specimens were destroyed, but wandering through the wreckage, it's not hard to appreciate that the picture is still confused. Some may be salvageable. Others may have suffered fatal wounds that won't be discovered until the tree experts from Nelmac have a chance to thoroughly investigate.
But despite the best efforts, the council's regular inspections and clean-ups of the park, and formal protections given to individual trees, everyone knows that James Marsden's prediction of the plantings surviving for centuries was always dependent on nature playing its part.
And Isel's great weakness is, as Grundy points out, that it stands as an island of trees above the low-lying suburban streets of Stoke, unbuffered and exposed, particularly to the east. Tree losses are relatively common there in big blows. Sally and Alistair Papps have seen various individuals brought down during their 11 years living in the park, including other landmark specimens.
But you'd have to go back to 1975 for a worse experience than last week. Isel was a far denser woodland then, and when Cyclone Alison blasted through, more than 100 trees were lost.
Adding to the vulnerability last week, the ground was soaked after a sodden July, making it easier for the giant rootballs to be ripped from the earth. There was one thing in the park's favour - the deciduous trees were bare, so the wind could not catch in the leaves and tug more over. The majority of those destroyed were evergreen conifers.
Still, the damage done was weirdly random; a stand of oaks seems largely unscathed, but for one of that has toppled. This mighty redwood still stands; that one, just as healthy and vigorous, lies dead.
Of course, Isel was just one scene of devastation left in the storm's wake; ground zero maybe, but as Nelmac's tree services manager, Peter Bywater, points out, there were something like 225 calls from throughout the city about tree- related damage last week.
The council and Nelmac have decided that the best course is to leave Isel Park closed, to attend to urgent problems - clearing the fallen pine from Poormans Stream, for one thing, to avoid it damming and flooding - but concentrating for now on the mass of smaller and easier clean-ups in the city, and then setting about the mammoth salvage job.
The ground needs to dry before the necessary heavy machinery, including cranes, can be brought in to haul the giant trunks out. The whole area is still deadly. Torn branches dangle high in the trees, big enough to suddenly drop and kill anyone who happens to be passing below. The trees with their huge rootplates still attached present a particular danger as they are cut up - at some point, the weight of the roots will act as a counterbalance and tip the tree back up.
The council has put up signs warning of fines for entering the park, and Grundy says better barriers will be installed - but it can only warn people. Last weekend, the place was crawling with those who ignored the warnings, to take a closer look.
The fate of the tonnes and tonnes of wood that has to be cleared away has yet to be decided - whether the council chooses to use some for civic projects, or sell it to craftsmen and builders. Then there will be lengthy repairs to the park's infrastructure - the crushed shrubs, the gouged-up lawns, the cratered paths and roadways, the ruptured irrigation system, the smashed shelter belts.
The Pappses want the rest of Nelson to recognise the loss at Isel Park, to respect the vital part of the city's heritage the trees - both fallen and surviving - represent, but also to accept that nature has taken its course and that the stories of the trees will add to the wider picture of Isel they are seeking to create for the city.
But nothing can hide the fact that for now, Isel Park is a place of destruction and sadness. At the height of the storm, Sally Papps watched from the Isel House verandah and wondered if any of the big trees were going to survive. The next morning, she went for a walk around the grounds and cried. Peter Grundy calls it soul-destroying. Peter Bywater says it's heartbreaking.
Exactly a week after the storm, Nelson couldn't be farther removed. It is sunny, balmy, a gentle breeze blowing. Birdsong rings through the air. Papps stands in the backyard of Isel House and looks west, reflecting that to the untrained eye, the treeline still looks like a park. But she knows it's not the same. Nelson Mail