03/03/2026
This winter, the skyline is changing.
One hundred and ten trees are coming down.
Nearly sixty of them are Austrian black pines — tall, dark sentinels that had framed the park for decades. We tried to protect them. We treated, monitored, hoped. But the processionary caterpillars returned each year, stronger. The seasons grew warmer. The winters shorter. And slowly, quietly, we realised we were witnessing something larger than a pest problem.
We were witnessing change.
It felt, at moments, like losing a war to climate itself.
Chainsaws in a historic park are never easy. The sound carries differently when a tree has stood longer than you have been alive. When it has shaped childhood summers, framed sunsets, cast its long shadow across the lawn.
And yet, stewardship is not about freezing time.
It is about reading it — and responding with intention.
The pines were not part of the original 1891 vision. They belonged to another chapter in the park’s long story. Now that chapter closes, and a new one begins.
Light reaches places it hasn’t touched in decades.
The wind moves differently.
The horizon has widened.
The park feels raw — but also awake.
This is not simply removal. It is renewal. A generational transformation of the landscape — one that embraces biodiversity, resilience, and a future climate rather than a past one.
We are not leaving an emptiness.
We are preparing for something extraordinary.
A new structure will rise in place of the old — more diverse, more adaptive, more alive. Something that will define the next century of this park.
We did not simply take trees down.
We made space.
And in that space, something greater will grow. 🌿
