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It’s not yet time for the English elm outside my kitchen window to start flashing its autumnal yellow. For 30 years, I have watched its leaves remain steadfastly green all April. I have collected its fallen leaves in winter (they make great compost) and delighted in the new ones unfurling in spring.
This tree, which towers over my narrow terrace house garden, marks time.
I can chart my year by its annual patterns, and I have grown attached to all of them. I have also become attached to the idea of the residents before me who must have known this elm, and of all the residents to follow because trees can span generations.
Trees can provide a living link between what has gone before and what is yet to come, which is why they make such powerful memorials. Glenn Williams, a former director of Treenet, a national urban tree research and education organisation, calls them a “wonderfully tangible” connection with the past.
The connective power of trees is front of mind in the lead-up to Anzac Day, because of all the trees that have been planted around Australia to commemorate those who have died in active service.
Since an avenue of sugar gums was planted – on June 21, 1900 – along a stretch of road in Havelock, Victoria, to honour Australia’s participation in the Boer War, at least another 1679 service-related memorials have been established across the country, at least one of which contains thousands of trees and some of which have been planted only recently.
One – a new avenue of scarlet oaks in Officer, Victoria, in remembrance of World War I and World War II fatalities – will be officially dedicated on Saturday.
While some of Australia’s oldest “living memorials” no longer exist – these trees succumb to the same pressures as any other tree – most continue to do well, and come April 25, they will become places of wreath laying, community services and ceremonies. On Anzac Day, memorial trees draw visitors young and old.
The first thing they might notice is that these memorial plantings take many forms. It is hard to pin a living memorial down. Some are arranged into kilometres-long avenues of honour, others are planted as single specimens, some as groves, others as rows.
There is almost no end to the variety of trees. Turkish pines, English elms, red gums, sugar gums, spotted gums, English oaks, Algerian oaks, pin oaks, scarlet oaks, Lombardy poplars, Moreton Bay figs, Norfolk Island pines, Monterey cypress, golden cypress, flame trees and much more besides.
Even mangoes, oranges, common figs and walnuts have been used to commemorate those who have died at war. While some memorials have a plaque dedicated to a particular soldier on every tree, others have more general signage.
Williams, who is spending much of his retirement travelling around the country verifying the status and researching the history of trees planted to commemorate war service for Treenet’s Avenues of Honour project, says the diversity is exciting.
He says it reflects both the climate of the site in question and the preferences of the communities who spontaneously established the plantings. These communities were often the families, friends or neighbours of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives, and they had their own particular visions for how the dead should be remembered.
“These trees have never been about glorifying war; these wars were terrible experiences and the trees were planted as a perpetual reminder for years to come,” Williams says. “They are there to commemorate our nation’s history. As living things, these trees represent the lives of soldiers, they keep the memories alive for future generations.”
They provide the cooling, shading, biodiversity-enriching, beautifying benefits of any other tree, which only widens their appeal. But they need to be maintained like any other tree, too.
Some memorial trees have suffered from neglect after the death of those who original conceived them and later generations not feeling the same emotional ties to tending them. Others have been felled due to urban-expansion projects and some have failed to thrive in a changing climate.
Williams is one of those encouraging us to think of memorial trees as a “major community asset” that should be valued.
He welcomes the fact that new memorial trees are being planted and that some of those old ones that are failing to thrive are being replanted, not necessarily with the same species. While all trees have value, Williams says he finds memorial ones especially affecting because of the purpose of their planting.
“Their history sets them apart,” he says.
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