ARBORIST and horticulturalist John Fordham has given Swan Hill’s sickly tree of
national significance a 50 per cent chance of survival.
Mr Fordham was in
Swan Hill last week on behalf of the national trust, overseeing the pruning of
the famous ‘Burke and Wills’ Moreton Bay fig tree.
He said that in the next
five years the fig’s fate, would become known.
“I think in the next five
years we’ll know how it’s going to perform.
“I give it a 50 per cent chance
of pulling through it.”
“But with watering, plant growth regulators, I don’t
see why we can’t get 20 or 30 years out of it.”
Mr Fordham said the tree’s
unhealthy state could be the result of any number of factors.
“It quite
possibly could have been the big drought we had; there could have been some
poisoning of the root system, perhaps not intentionally.
For more of this story, see Monday’s Guardian (May 6).
