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Abstract
This study covers the history of street and roadside planting in
New South Wales from the beginning of settlement to the present. It
is divided into three sections. The first section examines the
context within which the settlement occurred by exploring the
eighteenth century attitudes to the layout of colonial towns and the
use of trees in urban areas. It also considers the importance of
botany at this time and the effect of botanical investigations on the
settlement, ultimately influencing the choice of trees used as
avenues, particularly the rainforest trees. The second section
documents the sources of trees used for street and roadside planting
and the influences which brought about the different eras of planting.
The third section summarizes the complicated history of events,
issues, individuals and institutions which were involved in the
different periods of street and roadside planting as a series of
chronologies. This section also examines street and roadside planting
in the towns of New South Wales today. The survey of the planting in
contemporary towns verifies the historical eras of planting and
reveals the important effect of the physical regions of the State on
the choice of the species. The study shows that the composite history
of the influence of the eighteenth century, the use of rainforest
trees and the effect of regional variations in the State has created a
particular street and roadside planting which is characteristic of New
South Wales. In addition this work reveals that avenues of trees have
been incorporated as important elements in town design from the
earliest plans to the present.