Winds cause setback to popular UQ garden venue

The Alumni Teaching Garden at The University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus will be closed for several months following a mini tornado which swept through a section of the campus on December 17.

UQ Property and Facilities section is working hard so the garden can be opened again during first semester for the enjoyment of staff, students and visitors.

UQ gardener Klaus Queerengasser saw five years of his revegetation work disappear within minutes when some 20 large canopy trees came crashing down in winds estimated at more than 80km/hour last month.

Mr Queerengasser had been removing weed species such as syngonium vine which had spread through the garden and replanting with more appropriate understory and tree species which were up to 5 metres tall.

The canopy trees came down in the zone Mr Queerengasser had revegetated.

Grounds Supervisor Shane Biddle of Property and Facilities Operations section said trees which were lost included tipuanus (Tipuanu tipu), albizias (Albizia lebbecki), jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) and kauri pines (Agathis robusta), some 30 to 40 metres tall.

Some trees had twisted and split, resulting in the University having to hire a 100ft crane to remove the damaged trees as a risk mitigation measure. Some trees had fallen onto a closed off section of College Road and had to be moved.

“It’s such a shame that years of work has been lost, but fortunately no one was injured in this freak event,” he said.

“We have fenced off the garden and apologise that it is temporarily unavailable for public access. We hope to have the garden re-opened by about March.”

Other reported damage to the campus during the storm included bending of the tennis court fencing, trees damaging umbrellas at the 30/40 Café, and the loss of the net around the discus throwing area on Oval 5B.