Harewood Nursery’s tallest trees frame gateway to city

Two of the tallest trees to come out of the Harewood Nursery are gracing the gateway to Christchurch.

Nursery staff help load one of the 10-metre tall pin oaks onto the back of a truck.

The 10-metre-tall North American pin oaks have been carefully manoeuvred onto trucks and moved to Memorial Avenue, where they now take pride of place by the arches-adorned overpass.

The newly opened arches are part of the $112 million upgrade of State Highway 1.

“These pin oaks are among the tallest trees grown for shifting into Air-Pot containers,” nursery coordinator, trees, Mike Smith says.

“We initially grew this pair for Colombo Street landscaping but they weren’t suitable, so a private contractor thought they would be perfect for the gateway landscaping programme.”

The deciduous pin oaks – known for their glorious autumn colours – were grown in open ground at the Council-owned nursery before being moved into the containers.

“We then needed two truck trips to ship the trees to Memorial Avenue, along with some precise manoeuvring of a very large truck in a small nursery area.”

The pin oaks are among the last of the “big trees” as the nursery focuses on plants and smaller trees.