General Notes:
|
Pahiatua has a total of 110 Phoenix canariensis planted in 3 groups in its main street. The southernmost group of 9 is located outside the old Pahiatua Hospital, now the Masters Hall Accommodation and Conference centre; the middle group is 200 metres north, extending for nearly 500 metres, and then a further 1.2 kilometres north is the final group of 29. The entry here is for the largest middle group – 72 – which is effectively the southern entrance to Pahiatua. Pahiatua has extensive planting right throughout its main street, this being in many ways accidental: a planned railroad through the town was not actually built giving the townspeople ample space to beautify their town through tree-planting. The more central planting areas tend to be of single specimen exotic trees, these being planted mostly before the Phoenix canariensis. The group planting of the palms adds to their noticeability. There are a few obvious replacement plants, these being much smaller, but the average height is about 10 metres (in the appended image the specimen height is measured at 11.5 metres). They are in good condition, though the Northern group faces the problem of being co-planted with oaks, meaning that the ‘palm avenue’ effect is slightly lost. The planting date of circa 1960 has been established by interviews with local residents and by consulting records of the Pahiatua and Districts Museum (Henry Angelini, Main Street Memories of Pahiatua, self-published). Particularly if driving from the south into Pahiatua, the double-sided planting of the palms offers a notable sight. Right throughout the Wairarapa large Phoenix palms can be seen in private gardens, but there is nothing to match this extensive group planting in a town main street (Lloyd, M., 2023).
|