Times Colonist Article by Andrew Duffy (Photo by ADRIAN LAM):
Men who planted Centennial sequoia rail against its removal - Victoria Times Colonist
"Men who planted Centennial Square sequoia speak out against its removal
Three-man city horticulture crew that installed the now-massive tree in the early 1980s say they don’t understand why it has to come down.
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You can add the names of the three men who planted it to the long list of people opposed to the City of Victoria removing a giant sequoia to make way for a re-imagined Centennial Square.
Tom Rose, Mike Leahy and Stu Montgomery, the three-man city horticulture crew that planted the tree on a late-winter day in the early 1980s, say they just don’t understand why it has to come down.
“It’s a waste,” said Montgomery, 67, who retired in 2012 from the city after 37 years tending boulevards, sports fields and a stint overseeing Centennial Square. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Leahy, 68, who left his job with the city’s horticulture crew in 1988 after 14 years to tackle new trades, said the tree should be one of the main things left as-is in Centennial Square.
“It is what they should be working around, not kicking it out so that you can grade the ground a certain way,” he said. “You pick your focal points. And to me, if you want a focal point, there’s about the best focal point you can have right there.
“I just think that for a lack of ingenuity or imagination we’re getting rid of something that should be here.”
The tree and the fountain would both be removed in a proposed $11.2-million redesign of the 60-year-old civic landmark.
The design, approved by council in July of last year, calls for multiple water features, increased crowd capacity and improved sightlines. The city has directed its designers to find a way to commemorate the sequoia.
According to the city, the tree would threaten power, telecom and water lines if it is not removed, and the redesign will include a net gain of 14 trees, planted with an eye toward appropriate scales and root management.
The Centennial Square project is in the planning phase, and there is no date for removing the tree, but construction is scheduled to start this spring.
Thousands of Victoria residents have added their names to online petitions to save the sequoia, but the city has shown no signs of bending.
A technical report prepared by Dialog Design on the sequoia said its condition and location were deemed too problematic to allow it to remain in place.
“This is a case where the wrong species was planted in the wrong location, and the revitalization of the square provides an opportunity to rectify these conditions and create an improved and more vibrant civic space for the future,” it said.
That doesn’t sit well with Tom Rose, 90, who worked for the city for 31 years, was “the boss” of the horticulture crew and led the team planting the tree.
Rose said the tree is still in great shape — his late January observation backed up by the city’s own arborist report — and there must be some kind of work-around like pruning the lower branches to improve sightlines from Douglas Street through the square.
“It would take an hour for somebody to prune those lower branches off. It could still look natural and beautiful and you’d have a clear sightline,” said Leahy. “I just think to myself, if there was a building going there, fine no problem, I would understand, but all they’re doing here is landscaping and changing the profile of the square.”
Leahy also noted the city is going to spend millions on the city’s tree canopy, preserving and adding to it, but at the same time it intends to remove a massive specimen.
Rose hoped there might still be a chance to save the tree if people started talking about it. “We’re not going to go up there and take signs and protest, we’re just not up to that, but we thought maybe if this story was told then maybe people might think about it,” he said.
During a January afternoon discussion, standing on the fringes of the sequoia’s shadow, all three men marvelled at how the tree has grown over the past 40-plus years.
They easily remember the job itself, their collective memories recalling dry late-winter days digging a hole five feet deep and five feet across to accommodate a root ball that was four feet by four feet.
Montgomery notes they dug by hand, adding his time with the horticulture crew provided some of the hardest work he ever did in his life. “We were always digging,” he said.
The tree, which they estimate was about 10-feet tall with a trunk diameter of about six inches at the time, was brought from the parks yard near Beacon Hill Park. The crate it was in was removed, the root ball was roughed up a little and then it was lowered by crane into the hole.
Rose said they got lucky that it fit well and “sat down just right, level.”
Leahy suggested, with a laugh, that it was all skill.
The tree itself was not the first to be planted at the site. Rose said it was a replacement for a fir tree that died.
“That wasn’t a nice looking tree either, but this is a beautiful tree,” he said.
And it had been bred in Victoria. The sequoia was grown from a sapling at the city’s nursery near Thetis Lake Park, and after five years was moved to the parks yard near Beacon Hill Park to be prepared for planting.
Montgomery recalls laying out plywood so the crane truck could back right up to the spot off Douglas Street, and then he remembers Rose telling all the city bosses to get out of the way.
Leahy said even then, as a 25-year-old, he understood planting the tree was more than just another day on the job. “We were gardeners and we appreciated it; we understood,” he said. “I remember thinking this could stand for 100 years.”
aduffy@timescolonist.com
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