On one hand, says Glasspool, tourists often comment on the beauty of the city's trees and gardens, a significant given factor in the popularity of Napier as a cruise destination.
One website last week named Napier as the most popular cruise destination in New Zealand and, behind only Hobart, the second-most-popular in Australasia.
On the other hand its popular with airborne visitors of the feathered kind, who've been denied one popular roost with the destruction last week of a banksia on a reserve alongside Westminster Ave, Tamatea.
"The bellbirds and the tui just love them," said Glasspool, who started with the council at the age of 17, moving from a horticultural cadetship to a fulltime position on the staff. "Of all the trees to be cut-down...The banksia?"
The banksia trunk had been sawn-through to the stage where the overnight wind dropped it across a popular pathway, while in other recent incidents five pohutukawa alongside Pandora Rd have been vandalised, two of them destroyed.
The perplexed Glasspool perplexed said forlornly as she stood beside the stand yesterday and said: "This one will be next."
Also recently there have been trees poisoned at the Awatoto approaches to Napier's Marine Parade, and plants ripped out of gardens on the parade itself.
Last November two trees were cut down overnight in the Chambers St reserve and the nearby grounds of Napier Boys' High School.
Titter, who lists about 60 staff having various roles with the horticultural and parks and reserves attributes of the city, says the damage appears to be without motive.
People who witness any of the vandalism or know who may be responsible are being urged to contact the council on 0800 4 NAPIER, or to call the police.
