The volunteer botanists in central west New South Wales who dream of opening an arboretum of giant trees have a very long term vision and won’t really see the fruits of their labour in their lifetimes. Source: ABC Central West NSW
For nearly a decade they have been working to establish the arboretum and a living seed bank on the shores of Lake Wallace at Wallerawang near Lithgow.
The group behind the arboretum has a 99-year lease of 40 hectares of land under an agreement forged with a former state-operated power entity. It owned the Wallerawang power station across the water.
Times have changed and the power station has a new private owner, which has closed the plant, but that hasn’t stopped the trees, which continue growing ever so slowly.
It’ll take hundreds if not thousands of years for them to reach their full height but that doesn’t worry Bruce Ryan, the arboretum president.
“Our support group is called Friends of the Giants and of course there are no giants yet, they’re baby giants.
“But we do hope in a thousand years people do remember these early days and hope we’ve done something worthwhile.”
The arboretum is funded through donations and volunteer labour and the group is hoping to encourage younger people to share the vision.
The arboretum is arranged into three major collections – endemic trees of the local area, rare and endangered trees of Australia and giant trees of the world.
The species range from the ancient Wollemi pine to the American coastal redwood (sequoia sempervirens).
This is the species with the largest living trees at present in the world but Mr Ryan says alongside them will be a grove of Eucalyptus regnans which are the tallest things to ever grow.
“Unfortunately we’ve cut all of our largest ones down now but we did have them up to 140 metres tall,” he said.
“So a football field and a half in height which is the most spectacular thing you can imagine.
“Now we have only I think two in Australia which are over 100 metres tall which a great pity is so we’re going to rectify that.”
The seeds and seedlings have come from forestry commissions and botanic gardens all over the world, including Kings Park Botanic Gardens in Western Australia, which provided some of the rarest and most endangered species. But the arboretum volunteers hope to give in return.
“We’re trying to build what is effectively a living seed bank to save those trees if they become more under threat in Western Australia,” says Mr Ryan “If you store seeds even in the greatest facilities you lose the viability of some of the seed.
“If you’ve got a living plant you’re guaranteed that you can take some part to live on from.”
He says the living seed bank concept will also be extended to overseas species and the lakeside arboretum will become a ‘botanic ark’ of preservation and conservation.
The arboretum is called Barton Park because that was the name of the farm that one existed on the land; one of the first settled west of the Great Dividing Range.
It was visited by Charles Darwin during his visit to study platypus in the Cox’s River (now Lake Wallace).
The European history of the area is also living through in the form of three giant English oaks planted on the lake foreshore. One is believed to have been planted in 1915 to farewell troops from the area, the other two in 1918 to mark the end of WWI.
Co-founder of the arboretum is Mark Watchorn who is a history teacher. He says it’s hard not to separate giant trees from the past.
“You always think about the history because these things are over 2000 years old. These were still big trees when the Roman Empire was at its height,” he said.
Mr Watchorn says the arboretum will plant whole groves of trees rather than just individuals to try to recreate a forest situation.
“What you want when you walk into a forest, you want silence, you want some sort of dampness and you want people to look up.
“You just want people to see well how big am I really?”
The Barton Park Giant Trees Arboretum is due to open for limited public visits in November.
Volunteers eventually hope it will have picnic places, an education centre and cross country running track.
