Andrea Proctor tours with community around Albury Botanic Gardens

Landscape artist and horticulturalist Andrea Proctor, who's firm is behind the 81-page blueprint to revamp the Albury Botanic Gardens, met with residents today and will again at 10.30am tomorrow for a tour around the gardens to discuss the plan.

Part of the plan is to remove the avenue of elm trees along the northern border of the gardens, due to their age and condition, but many Border Mail readers disagreed with the proposal, after the plan was put out for public feedback.

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Ms Proctor said people, including the council and herself, were sad to lose the elms.

"But I'm also a horticulturalist and I understand trees have got a limited life," she said.

"This is a problem a lot of old trees and public gardens across southern Australia are facing at the moment, a lot of European trees when they were planted when they were established are actually expected to have a life expectancy in this climate of about the age that they are now, so a lot of trees are getting lost all over the place.

"There's almost nothing that we can do about it, the trees are old, they've got rot in them, elms are very subject to disease and they're not suited to this climate, there's nothing we can do about that."

Ms Proctor said the only way to manage the issue was through succession planning.

"Albury City is actually incredibly ahead of the game, they've had trees that they've been contract growing for seven years as a replacement," she said.

"That's almost unheard of ... it is really fast thinking to have done that."

It's proposed the elms will be replaced with three and half meter Ginkgo Biloba trees, but Ms Proctor admitted that when they first went in they wouldn't have the same charm or impact as the elms.

"Part of the impact and joy of that avenue is the length and colour," she said.

"So what we're actually doing is putting an incredible perennial border of flowers displayed underneath it, so while those trees are growing we've still got a place that's incredibly beautiful and I can imagine it being used for wedding photos again within a year or two, no longer than that."

Residents at the session also raised queries about whether council would sell the timbre from the elms for a profit or whether the timbre could be used by community members for art projects.

One resident wanted to find out what was going to the garden's wishing well and another had concerns about possums.

The draft plan can be found on the AlburyCity website. Submissions close May 8.

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