Gavins
Trees beside the mighty Buller
Terry and Claire Gavin might live and work in Nelson but every week
you’ll find them at their own little slice of heaven, planting and
tending their trees beside the Buller River, a few kilometres north of
the Owen River Tavern, Murchison.
The Gavins bought the nearly 50 ha property, a long thin strip of bony
river terraces lying between SH6 and about 3.5 km of river bank, late
in 1994.
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| Claire and Terry Gavin in
front of a stand of poplar Eridano – the larger ones were planted in
2002 |
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| Looking
out through
Douglas fir planted in 1998 to the Buller River. |
They started to plant in the middle of the following year... and
haven’t stopped since. They don’t only plant for the financial return,
saying that while the money’s nice enough it’s not the most important
thing in life. Their children will get something out of it, but
meanwhile they’re getting involved in planting too, and you get the
feeling that the family involvement gives Claire and Terry as much
pleasure as their love of trees.
Planting the property out in trees completely is not on the agenda,
however. They lease the pasture out for grazing, recognising they
simply don’t have the time to manage stock as well as tend trees, and
enjoy the resulting combination of open space, the trees they have
planted, and the natural bush backdrop (particularly the beech on the
scenic reserve across the road).
Claire and Terry have planted a fascinating diversity of species, and
purchasing another smaller piece of land a few hundred metres down the
road has given them even more scope to explore their passion.
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| A pleasing
combination of open space, the trees they have planted, and the natural
bush backdrop. Along the fenceline right to left: Macrocarpa, Calocedrus decurrens, Chinese fir,
Deodar cedars, Swamp cypress, Sitka
spruce, and western red cedars. |
Their river terraces might not offer much in the way of deep loam, but
some species are thriving, and in particular the cypresses.
Sold on cypresses
Right from the start the Gavins knew they wanted to include cypresses
in their plantings, and took heart from the fact that a previous owner
some 40 years prior had successfully planted seedling Lawson Cypress on
a steep face.
“So we knew this place would grow trees,” says Terry.
Their first macrocarpas (Cupressus
macrocarpa) were Kukupa clones planted in 1995.
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| Macrocarpa
clone Kukupa planted in 1995 and pruned to 6m. |
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| Seedling macrocarpa planted in 1995. |
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| Macrocarpa
clones
Kukupa planted 1996 and Kaitangata planted 1997, pruned to 6m. |
Kukupa was one of the first commercial Forest Research clones. It has
gained something of a canker-prone reputation since its release in
1992, but Claire and Terry say they’ve been fortunate in that less than
5% of theirs have been infected with canker.
Their impression so far is that Kukupa is a nicely formed tree ‑ fairly
slim, tall, and lightly and horizontally branched. The growth rate
appears slightly slower than some of the other seedlings, but they are
growing. At time of writing Terry felt they were probably a little
overstocked. Pruned to 6m and on an easily accessed site, he hopes that
in another 3-4 years he can take out the poorer performers as a mini
sawlog and let the others grow on.
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| Macrocarpa
clone Callum planted in
2001. Yet another once-promising clone... poorish form and some canker
is the Gavins’ verdict. |
“The question is, whether the canker is becoming more prevalent as more
people plant more cypresses?” ponders Terry.
Subsequent to the Kukupa they have gone on to plant other macrocarpa
clones, including Kaitangata, Callum, and their two current favourites,
NZR and Silverwood.
Claire describes NZR as a strikingly elegant clone, slim and straight,
with light horizontal branching, and says their oldest plantings of
these are starting to “fatten up nicely”. This clone's parent tree was
found on the side of the road on the West Coast.
Silverwood grows more vigorously than NZR. The original parent tree
came from Frank White's farm at Hororata, and its appearance suggests
some lusitanica in its genes.
While clonal macrocarpas tend to have good form they can lack vigour –
Silverwood however has not only got what the Gavins describe as a very
strong motor, but also shows good form on the bony terraces where
growth is less rapid.
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| Macrocarpa clone NZR planted in 2002,
showing its lovely form. |
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| Macrocarpa
clone NZR
in front row with fatter Silverwoods in rows behind ‑ both planted 2002.
|
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| The vigorous cypress clone Silverwood
(planted 2005). |
The Leyland cypresses (X Cupressocyparis
leylandii) originated as
accidental hybrids of macrocarpa and the Nootka cypress Chaemacyparis
nootkatensis. Ferndown has been their pick of the Leyland
cypresses
because they grow straight and true and are much less prone to wind
socketing than the macrocarpa. The new farm also includes plantings of
Stapehill.
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| Culled 2000
macrocarpa and lusitanica clones with 2 year-old Leyland
"Ferndown"
replacements (two years old). |
Ovens cypress (C. Ovensii) is
a cross between nootkatensis and
lusitanica and Terry and Claire report these are very quick out of the
blocks.
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| C. "Ovensii" Planted 2000.
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| C. Ovensii, 2002. |
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| Go you good thing! C. Ovensii planted in
2007. |
“They outgrow pines and all the other cypresses in the first year or
two,” says Terry. “They are very nicely formed, very straight, and the
branches aren’t big ‑ they’re just great, and a pleasure to prune.
The Gavins do all their own pruning and say they try not to be too
vigorous having had a few sick macrocarpa from overpruning them in a
dry summer.
(For more information about cypresses, in particular species and site
selection, the hybrids, and wood properties, see Tree
Grower, February
2006.)
In addition to their passion for cypresses the Gavins have planted an
eclectic mix of trees, some for pure interest, some for aesthetics and
some for production – some successfully and some not so successful.
In the late 90s they also planted specimens of Scots pine (Pinus
sylvestris), P. Massoniana
(Masson’s or Chinese Red Pine), P.
koreansis, P. armandii
(Chinese white pine), P ayacahuite
(Mexican white
pine) and P. Patula, in what
is almost a mini-pinetum.
Any walk with Terry and Claire around their property can be full of
arboreal surprises. In the space of a few dozen metres you’ll see
Kaitangata (another macrocarpa clone), Calocedrus decurrens, the
incense cedar, used for making pencils; Chinese firs, and more
macrocarpas, as well as swamp cypress, and western red cedar.
Other species on their property include sitka spruce (grown from seed),
oaks, silver maples and sugar maples, eucalypts (E. laevopinea, E. cordata
and E. nitens), liriodendron,
red alders, and chestnuts for
timber.
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| Poplar
'Eridano" with Red Alder in behind, planted 2002. Eridano, a clone of Populus
deltoides x maximowiczii, is
reportedly possum and rust
resistant with attractive pale timber. It has also proved palatable to
the cattle during dry summers. |
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| Silver Maples planted
in 2003. Silver maples (Acer saccarinum) do not contain as much sugar
as the sugar maple but can still produce maple syrup none-the-less.
|
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| Red Alder (2002). |
Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata)
is being grown for timber and possibly nuts, but Terry notes it is hard
to keep a leader.
“They’re terrible things to try and get growing straight ‑ they seem to
fork off. However it’s amazing what trees will do. We’re really growing
this as an experiment and you never know, we might get some nuts off
it.”
Learning from experience
Always looking to experiment and learn more, they take set-backs in
their stride and learn from experience. Amongst their less successful
plantings have been redwoods, that have varied from “all right” to
“terrible” depending on the site, and the Silvertop stringybark Eucalyptus laevopinea.
The Gavins were inspired to try eucalypts after talking with enthusiast
Denis Hocking at a Farm Forestry Conference.
“We had started thinking about it, and then a patient who had given me
his old Tree Grower magazines also gave me some seeds,” recalls Terry.
“He’d been growing eucs in the Marlborough Sounds and had collected
some seed of E.
laevopinea. Having been fired up by Denis we thought that,
because it
comes from the high country between northern NSW and southern
Queensland and takes a frost more than some eucs, this might be the one
for us
“So we got Appletons to grow the seed. It proved a bit of a problem but
eventually they got several hundred trees for us. They grew OK, not as
fast [as some] but OK. But year after year they’d be hit by the later
frosts when the new growth was coming, so then we’d form prune hoping
they’d come again but it just kept happening. Eventually we culled them
and inter-planted with a more suitable tree for us... you’ve guessed
it, a cypress! Now we’re chopping the laevopinea down and hauling them
away for firewood, just to get a bit more light in progressively to the
underplantings.”
New block – new opportunities
When the Gavins took over the new 7 ha block they were faced with a
whole new set of challenges. The property has been sold several times
over, and while a previous owner had planted a lot of trees
approximately 10 years before, these hadn’t been looked after. In the
resulting struggle between the trees, blackberry, broom, muehlenbeckia
and others weeds some of the trees won, but often the blackberry
conquered. With much application of sweat and machines and brute
strength Terry and Claire whacked away most of the weeds and felled
some of the worst trees.
One problem area included a small stand of black walnuts that had
suffered due to the combination of neglect and being smothered in
rampant blackberry.
“Eric Appleton said cut them off at ground level, which of course we
didn’t want to do, but we did and it was exactly the right thing to
do,” says Claire, “Because what happens then is it coppices away from
the base, you get a few shoots and the next year you choose the best of
those. And often because it’s got a better root system it will grow a
lot better, and that’s what’s happened although the form is still not
very good.”
They are now looking at planting a Quercus
robur / Q. petrea cross that
reportedly has better form and will be a good timber tree, and have
planted black walnuts as well.
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| Oaks, probably Q. Robor,
planted approximately 10 years ago and then neglected. We have started
to prune them up. |
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| Poor
formed black walnuts planted perhaps 10 years ago ‑ to be culled when
time permits. |
Whoever had done the planting also planted blackwood but these appear
to have been stung by a bad winter after some years. Most of those are
getting chopped out for firewood and cypresses (Leylands, NZR and
Silverwood) planted where they used to be. Firewood supply won’t be an
issue for the Gavins, with a stand of 10 year-old E. nitens yet to be tapped.
Another problem on this site was poor drainage. A boggier area on the
lower part of the property was so bad it was virtually inaccessible,
even to walk on, after rain. This has now been drained and planted in
Ovensii, which grew by up to 1.5m in their first year.
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