Airport's prized trees chopped
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Three majestic monkeypod trees that two years ago helped Honolulu International Airport earn the Outdoor Circle's Beautification Award have been cut back in a topping operation, reduced to stark skeletons of leafless, truncated limbs.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
A state Transportation Department spokeswoman said O'ahu Airports District Manager Stanford Miyamoto was investigating the situation in response to complaints.
Monkeypod trees in the Honolulu International Airport's Culture Garden are skeletons of their former selves after contractors cut them. The trees helped the airport win Outdoor Circle's Beautification Award two years ago.
The trees stand in the airport's Culture Garden, a courtyard oasis that honors the landscaping traditions of Hawai'i's diverse people.
Mary Steiner, chief executive officer of the Outdoor Circle, has asked state transportation and airport leaders for an explanation.
"I came back from a Mainland trip July 6, tired and jet-lagged after an 11-hour flight, and I noticed the trees immediately when I came through the concourse," Steiner said.
"My stomach went into my throat."
Jim Farrell, a landscaper, said he also was stunned to see "the formerly gorgeous monkeypod trees ... horribly butchered by a private contractor under the direction of the Department of Transportation airport managers."
The trees, Farrell said, "will never, ever look the same."
Abner Undan, a professional arborist educated at the University of the Philippines in botany, chemistry and plant physiology, said the topping will cause the trees to grow even taller and will create liability and increased maintenance costs because new growth will not be firmly attached to the parent branches.
Undan, whose Trees of Hawaii is one of the largest tree maintenance firms in the state, estimated the trees are 40 to 50 years old and worth at least $30,000 to $40,000 each.
He said it probably will cost about $3,000 per tree to guide the new growth by pruning during several cycles. Because it is too difficult to bring lift trucks into the area, all the pruning will have to be done by climbers, he said.
"They have changed the structure and the architecture of the trees forever," Undan said.
The trees most likely will come back, but could face serious problems of decay in coming years, he said.
Undan, a volunteer arborist consultant to the Outdoor Circle, said such trees will stop growing vertically after many years, and then will spread horizontally.
They should never be topped, he said.
