Downer locals perplexed after native trees are replaced with exotics

Two days later they were gone. Someone moved in overnight and replaced the natives with non-natives, including pines and oaks earlier this week. Why? No one knows. How? No one knows. When? No one knows.

The bizarre set of events has confused Downer residents in the Fenton Street Park Revival community group, who had been working with Transport Canberra and City Services to plant the donated seedlings.

One of the children involved in planting the natives was 11-year-old Jay, who was excited to see the gum tree he planted grow up with him

"I felt really sad and kind of angry that someone had taken them," he said.

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"Why did they do it? I don't really understand why they would do something like that. It doesn't make sense."

After noticing the plants had been replaced Jay's mother Kate, who did not want to use her last name, took to Canberra Inner North Community Facebook group to air her concerns.

"This isn't what we expect from our community. The kids are going to be heartbroken," the post said.

Kate said she was surprised by the response to her post, where people offered to buy new trees.

"When I told Jay the plant you lovingly planted has been ripped out I was able to then say to him, 'look at this, look at all these messages from our community'. He was quite blown away," she said.

Kate was confused after finding a native plant unceremoniously discarded next to a new exotic plant.

"First we thought someone wanted the natives so they stole them and just stuck some random trees in," she said.

"[When we] found one of the natives discarded ... that made us think, it wasn't that they were interested in stealing the natives. For whatever reason they wanted their own trees."

Another member of the Fenton Street Park Revival, who did not want to be named, said he was perplexed by the incident, especially after the lengthy period of community consultation.

"There's a couple of trees that are planted there are quite invasive so if they are left unmanaged they could take over a lot of playground space and it will become an issue," he said.

"We specifically aimed to select species that the ACT government supported, but also ones that would foster a bit of biodiversity."

A spokesperson from the directorate said it would provide replacement seedlings of the original species to the Fenton Street Park Revival group, to be planted back in the original spots.

"Volunteer planting events help instil a sense of stewardship in the community and allow the residents to share ownership of their local park," the spokesperson said.

"It is disappointing that carefully planned trees planted by the local community have been removed and replaced with species that would have changed the ecology and design of the park if allowed to remain."

The spokesperson said while there had been isolated incidents of newly planted trees being damaged or removed in the ACT, this was the first incident TCCS were of where volunteer plantings were removed.

Kate said she did not want the incident to dampen community spirit, and said locals should get in touch with the community group instead of taking matters into their own hands.

"The point of this was to build community ... everybody is a part of our community whether they're the person who took the plants or not," she said.

"We just ask that people don't pull them out."