On the fifth of May 2026, three 150-year-old Elm trees were felled on the western side of Fitzroy’s Edinburgh Gardens. After a fraught battle, some internet campaigning, Facebook NIMBY-ing and hallowed ‘community-consultation’, the chainsaws were fired up and on a still morning, the trees came down. 

As children, I imagine most of us learnt about trees as objects for our play and enjoyment. I know I did, attending primary school on the border of the Edinburgh Gardens. These very Elm trees had been hidden behind in games of hide and seek, had their roots tripped over and seen a multi-coloured glut of bottle tops collected from beneath their canopies, always providing shade on hot summer afternoons. I remember learning in class one day that each ring in a tree trunk’s cross-section represented a year of its life. Photosynthesis expanded it outwards, and upwards, and as each year passed the bark would thicken and another ring would appear. History tells us exactly how old these Fitzroy Elms were, but only the visual of its orange-hued trunk, sliced in half, could make it so blatant. 

The Elm, while not native, has a very long and profound history within colonial Australia, but also in ecology altogether. The Elm was one of the earliest introduced species planted in Australia and its prevalence was intended to evoke the British pastoral, and the grand European-style avenue design of urban green spaces and Victorian parks. Elms are the first deciduous trees to ever drop their leaves in mainland Australia and mark the arrival of British settlement and the introduction of entirely new flora and fauna at odds with native plant evolution, up until that point. 

Throughout the 20th Century, Dutch Elm Disease progressively wiped out nearly all mature Elm trees in the Northern Hemisphere and New Zealand. Spread by the elm bark beetle, the tree accelerates its own death as its immune system kicks into gear. Slowly but surely, the upper leaves yellow prematurely, the branches begin to droop, and the tree begins to die. Various methods, including environmentally disruptive fungicides and insecticides, ring-barking and the rather sinister term of ‘sanitary felling’, saw little success and by 1973 an approximate 25 million Elm trees in the United Kingdom had died alone. Let alone the further millions in North America, Europe and Asia. 

Melbourne is now home to the world’s oldest, and most significant collection of Elm trees in the world with their conservation seen in a plotted out plan by the City of Melbourne and the National Trust Heritage List. Consultation bodies regularly convene to ensure trees’ ongoing preservation, and all local councils have in-house arborists who maintain the trees we look at and walk past every day. Four Elms were planted in 1845 in the eastern corner of the now established Royal Botanic Gardens. Even though only two survive, they join the heralded group of the oldest known exotic trees in Victoria. Elms have a lifespan of up to 300 years, so it is no real shock then, that for the tree-lovers and local historians of Melbourne that the chainsawing of three of these 150-year-old trees was a blindsiding act, and well worthy of making local news. 

I am not making value, or judgement statements in writing about this event though—rather I hope to cultivate more interest in the status and sanctity of our local green spaces. When the avenues that form the Edinburgh Gardens were laid out in the 1860s, extensive planting of Dutch Elms began and followed suit in the Darling, Fitzroy and Carlton Gardens in 1882. The land was reserved to provide leisure space for residents in the growing suburbs of Melbourne. The gardens are still a social hub today, and the trees have seen changing demographics and varying public uses throughout their long history. It must be acknowledged too, that this history continues, and these three trees were cut down to expand the tennis club (gaining two new courts, for a total of four), which has occupied the same site since 1888, boasting a waitlist nearing three years. There are ongoing efforts to redevelop and continue planting in these parks with new styles, with an emphasis on native species. It is a shame the decision to fell three Elms was deemed necessary to achieve this. 

I try to keep up with the statuses of my local green spaces and am genuinely interested in our social understanding of urban greenery—I know generally about some of Melbourne’s grander, or more rare specimens and observe the powerful link between age, grandiosity and scale, when I look at trees that are older than any human ever could be. I have previously noticed the two missing Elms in University Square, a public park at the centre of the University of Melbourne’s sprawling campus, linking the Law School and Commerce Faculty, with the Science and Arts bases of the Parkville campus. I noticed this in 2022 whilst performing boat races as a part of the infamous University of Melbourne Prosh Week. There was an obvious gap in the short avenue of Elms, something I was reminded of when the date that the Edinburgh Garden’s Elms were to be cut down was announced. It sent me searching. 

The University Square park was redeveloped as a part of the Grattan Street overhaul, making way for construction of the Metro Tunnel and Parkville Station. The City of Melbourne Council has published the redevelopment’s Master Plan on their website (admittedly in numerous documents, and it’s quite hard to find) since 2016. It was created in consultation with the University of Melbourne who wanted Grattan Street closed permanently to cars and the park absorbed into the campus for their own use. There were compromises made to keep the road open. These plans offer limited detail about species, or timelines for growth, but they proudly state the number of additional trees that have been planted, using buzzwords like ‘activation’ to delineate the value of new seating areas or green spaces. The project is nearing completion 10 years on. 

Based on Google Earth imaging sometime between October 2017 and December 2018 a total of 23 mature Dutch Elm trees were cut down to make way for the expansion of the overall green area in University Square. What followed was the absorption of bay-parking spots and road space along both the eastern and western side of University Square, the planting of native-grass beds, replacement of old-style benches and protection between footpaths and the now one-way, one-lane road called Leicester Street. The eastern side, Barry Street is still closed as of the time of writing. 

I was too young to hear of any hullabaloo when these trees were cut down and don’t remember a time before University Square was under construction, fenced at points and a bit of a rigmarole to navigate. So, when I found out that the two central Elms that were missing had died naturally and been lopped and removed in stages I thought nothing remarkable of it. I was shocked however, that Melbourne City Council, in talks with the University of Melbourne, felled 23 healthy trees, with the justification of making more green space. Old Google Earth photos show students splayed out on the grass and a rather ornate, established park. It is a baffling decision—and it makes me sad to have lost the shade once provided by tree-canopies which sat on the footstep of Australia’s pre-eminent university. 

I think of The Corkman Pub on the south-eastern corner of University Square, which was illegally bulldozed in 2016 and became the poster child of Victorian Heritage protection efforts. Following long-winded court orders, jail-time for the developers, a brief stint as a public park and numerous attempts at appeal, the Court insisted the pub be reconstructed with its original facade. In the precedent-setting case, the facade has now been restored, but the inside is a concrete shell, and there has not been a tenant found. The Pub overlooks the missing Elms, which used to line University Square. Pubs can be rebuilt. A tree takes 50 years to grow to maturity again. 

Trees are a great equaliser, and their benefits to humans are well-known. They have their own natural lifecycle which supersedes that of humans and in most species. We should be their patron, not their destroyer.

Photography by Ruby Weir-Alarcon