Deprived by sad snub of native trees

Sadly, Marine Pde isn't lined with pohutukawa trees. And if it were? A crimson bloom would be wishing motorists a very Merry Christmas. Instead, we have a gauntlet of exotic conifers.

But I'm not here to get ropey with our forebears. Hopelessly homesick, and still referring to Britain as home, they adorned their new country with "home's" botanical specimens. Their cultural cringe was understandable. But I do get ropey with their descendants who suffer the same malaise.

Take Hastings District Council's recent decision to plant four mature Chinese windmill palms on Heretaunga St. Unbelievable.

Last week, slightly miffed, I put a call into council's landmarks advisory group. That only irked me more. Why? Because the decision wasn't a case of native trees being pipped at the post by an exotic bolter. No. Native trees didn't even make the final four. Unutterable.

Council also told me it was prepared in future projects to perhaps be more "adventurous". When did planting indigenous trees suddenly become risky?

The decision was also made because windmill palms apparently fit well with our Art Deco and Spanish Mission motifs. I thought only Napier was hamstrung by its populist architecture?

Putting aside the argument that the heritage value of our built environment shouldn't dominate our natural environment, if palms fit the bill then why not our only native palm, nikau, which is also the world's southern-most?

While frost-sensitive as youngsters (yes I have spoken to local experts), semi-mature nikau could easily have made the cut.

The ubiquitous windmill palms are fine to look at, but unless you're a visiting sister-city delegate from Guilin, they have no resonance. They're bubblegum for the eye. They serve only to play up the moth-eaten, Aunt Daisy, hanging-basket mentality that defines Hastings CBD and the council's landmarks group.

I note that every new citizen in the Hastings district is handed, with considerable irony, a native kowhai tree by councillors. Did they run out of windmill palms?

Am I a botanical xenophobe? Nope. I'm just hankering to redress the imbalance. In our increasingly diluted treescape, natives hold the unique position of belonging. Without this sensibility, council has ensured my great-grandchildren will lament Heretaunga St in the same way I do Marine Pde. Unconscionable.