Whakatipu Wilding Control Group executive member Dick Hubbard, an ex-mayor of Auckland, believes hundreds of Douglas firs need taking out.
The problem, he says, is during westerly winds they become seed sources for wildings elsewhere, for example on Queenstown Hill.
Hubbard says "there’s no question of just going in and blindly cutting down trees and leaving scars and all of that".
"You remove selective trees and you plant selective trees over a period of time, and people don’t really sort of notice so much or it doesn’t have an adverse visual effect."
He admits wildings grow a lot faster, for example, than native beech trees, "but council have got arborists and they know their way around tree species and what works and what doesn’t".
Former longtime Queenstown Tennis Club president Teresa Chapman — the club’s courts are in the Gardens — says the wilding pine issue requires "very careful consideration, and not the slash, burn and spray eradication efforts we’ve seen to date around the district".
The wildings need to stay, she says, till replacement trees have been given the time and shelter to get established, or the environment and micro-climate of the Gardens will be ruined, she warns.
"As soon as they removed the trees they already have, the wind now channels through the Gardens.
"Our forebears who planted those trees knew what was needed to protect what they were planting."
Chapman adds she knows what she’s talking about as she’s worked in the conservation field and been involved with pinus contorta eradication.
Nearby resident Jarn Bulling says "I feel many would happily see the pines removed at all cost — this is something I strongly disagree with".
"Pines from seedlings spreading from the Gardens onto Queenstown Hill can be controlled and removed, however the Queenstown Gardens cannot simply be replaced.
"Most of the Gardens trees and plantings have never been exposed to the weather due to the shelter the pines provide, and to remove them before new species are established would cause irreversible damage."
