Two remnants of Sydney’s past

They tell me this is the oldest street planting in Australia, so I believe them. Amazingly, three original swamp mahoganies (eucalyptus robusta), of which this is one, still line the road (now path) along which Elizabeth Macquarie used to enjoy buggying from Government House to watch the bustle on the harbour around 1816.

Given the tree and the wall are both the same age (approx. 200 years) I reckon the tree carries its age rather better than the wall. Our fifth Governor built the wall (not personally) to keep the riffraff of the town out of the government domain and commissioned the row of trees to beautify the road for his second wife’s drives. Like many gardeners since, his team failed to look ahead and planted the young trees a bit too close to the wall.

August 2019