The search is on for Lower Hutt's greatest trees

“Imagine that park without it,” he says, shaking his head at the thought.

Now as the manager in charge of the care of Lower Hutt’s 148 notable trees, Colin loves knowing that our visually and historically important trees are protected, inspected and maintained by Hutt City Council, but there are others he worries about.

There are significant trees all over the city on public and private land that are worthy of protection, and he thinks residents may be surprised that many of them are not on the list.

“Housing intensification is causing conflict with our street tree assets, so extra care, pruning and specialist care is needed to retain our healthy, good form trees. Due to development, even the health of trees in reserves is affected so it’s important to protect them before it’s too late,” he says.

That’s why Hutt City Council has put out the call for new nominations for “notable” trees to be added to the register in the District Plan.

This map shows the location of all current notable trees and if you want to nominate an additional tree, you can do that here.

A notable tree may have any of these characteristics:

• It acts as a significant landmark or is visually prominent in the community
• It is large, healthy, of good form and an attractive addition to the area
• It is of a significant age and in good health
• It is locally meaningful in some way, as a connection to heritage or cultural values, or
• It is a rare example of its kind

Qualifying trees will only be added with the permission of the landowner, but Colin says there are benefits to having a tree on the register.

“We do an annual inspection of every notable tree each November, checking for deadwood and faults and will do any necessary arborist work to maintain the health of the tree,” he says.

Colin had been keeping a wary eye on a huge Norfolk pine in Central Hutt that had lost some upper limbs in several storms, which made it more prone to further damage in high winds.