This story is the first in a series to help you get to know more about your ‘Totally Georgeous’ new main street!

One of the things you’ll probably notice is an increase in new plantings and trees along George Street. Along the four blocks which are part of the Retail Quarter Upgrade project, we are planting over 90 new trees and 700m2 of garden beds and rain gardens!

As well as being attractive and providing a softer look to the street, these trees and gardens serve other useful purposes.

For one, they are an important part of managing stormwater and the greater number of heavy rain events that are likely occur due to a changing climate. The stormwater design helps to passively irrigate the gardens and the flow of rainwater through the garden beds to the rain gardens helps to reduce contaminants entering the stormwater system and the harbour.

Secondly, the plant and tree species have been carefully selected to ensure they are resilient and suitable for the urban environment, while also attracting more native insects and birdlife.

Thirdly, the plantings within the gardens have been chosen to support cultural values. The planting selection has been developed alongside mana whenua through our project partners Aukaha and a number of species have mahika kai values and traditional uses.

One of the questions we are frequently asked is why we had to remove the old trees. There are several reasons for this.

Many of the previous trees had not been planted in ideal conditions or locations, meaning they were at or near the end of their lifespan. The work we are doing to replace underground pipes meant we couldn’t avoid damaging the roots of the old trees, so many would have been unlikely to survive the upgrade. Furthermore, the tree species were not all suitable for where they were planted, meaning some had got too large and blocked light into buildings or created issues with root damage etc.

Not wanting to waste the timber resource from the old trees we felled, we donated as much timber as possible to the Otago Woodturners Guild to be turned into other products.

Locations for the new trees have been carefully chosen to ensure they don’t obscure heritage building facades. The new trees are a mix of deciduous and evergreen, allowing sunlight to get to open spaces and ensure we have as much amenity and natural light in the street all year round. They are also planted in special stratavaults which will help keep the trees remaining healthy, achieve maturity and avoid damaging underground services.

You can see in the Farmers Block how the first gardens are starting to mature after a year of being planted. The gardens are designed to become lush and overflowing, with different plants featuring during throughout the year!

Each block will have a slightly different planting mix to reflect their different character and conditions.