Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00620:body:0:p27
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00620
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 72645–75580

the north elevation of West Block, and the symmetrically-positioned sentinel poplars either side of Queen Victoria Terrace
Source: National Archives of Australia, NAA A3560, 3268
Figure 15 Oblique aerial, 1928
Source: National Archives of Australia, NAA A3560 7712

Figure 16 Aerial view of West Block, 1950
Source: ACT Planning and Land Authority
The 1920s planting treatment was generally extant in 1950, as shown in aerial view at Figure 16.  Today, a fraction of the original plantings survive.  As is the case elsewhere within the Parliamentary Gardens, the extant plantation is conspicuously thinner and also less diverse, having consolidated from the original experimental plantation to those trees which have proven most hardy to the local climate and planting conditions.
As in other places in Australia, certain trees have proved to have generally shorter lifespans than in their indigenous conditions, including the Giant redwoods which the photographic record shows were initially successful in the West Block planting.  As a consequence of either their planting position or of the impact of climate stressors and periods of drought, these trees have been lost within the West Block planting, excepting a single specimen which may be a somewhat younger replacement planting for a failure in the original stock.[49]  In a similar fashion, the formal plantings of Lombardy poplar have performed to their typical lifespan as a fast-growing species in Australia, and deceased trees in the formal arrangement have in some places within the Parliamentary Triangle been appropriately replaced with new stock (as has been done on Queen Victoria Terrace opposite West Block).
Despite these challenges, a number of original specimens have been retained within the planted landscape integral to West Block.  In addition to the single Lombardy poplar, the four surrounding Arizona cypresses are original trees which maintain the formal setting of the building in relation to the formal axis.  Atlantic cedars retained adjacent to Commonwealth Drive similarly maintain a sense of the original treatment of this face of the site, along with the single Giant redwood survivor.  Although the car park has been altered relatively recently, retained or replanted specimens and groups of Pin Oak and Elm continue to serve as the amenity and screening planting for which they were originally conceived.

Camp Hill and Mount Kurrajong
In contrast to the Beaux Arts-inspired formality of the Parliamentary Administrative Area, the FCAC adopted the principle of retaining the existing open landscape of indigenous trees on Mount Kurrajong and Camp Hill, respectively located to the south-east and east of West Block (see Figure 13),[50] and reinforcing this with further plantings of native trees, shrubs and groundcovers.  The front edge of Camp Hill, facing the provisional Parliament House, may have been mass planted with the 'Mixed Acacias'