Constant Gardeners

It is hosing down with rain on the sort of June night that gets dark at 5.30pm. I step into the wood-panelled hallway of the Blenheim Club and am watched from on high by mounted deer as I search for the AGM of Hunter’s Garden Marlborough. All the doors are closed. There is complete silence. Is this the right night?

Marlborough mayor Alistair Sowman arrives behind me with the same question. We spy a crack of light under a door. The mayor knocks and enters and is greeted by Garden Marlborough president Viv Peters, who is wrapping up a preliminary meeting.

Meetings are nothing new for the 10 or so people gathered around the sturdy wooden table. As the organising committee of one of New Zealand’s premier garden events, they have been getting together every fortnight since January, with sub-committees working in between.

This is the 17th Garden Marlborough and they know what’s ahead. Come 4 November, they will be entertaining, educating and enchanting up to 4,000 fellow garden lovers with garden tours, workshops, dinners and exhibitions. In the meantime, they have to plan everything from bus-turning circles to the cover colour of the publicity programme.

As the agenda progresses, it becomes clear that this is a massive effort for a group of volunteers – the committee of 10 swells to hundreds of helpers over the event. “We are a registered charity and a big community fundraiser. We have one paid employee but the rest of us are volunteers,” says Viv.

And well qualified ones at that. Frank Metcalfe was director of operations for the Ellerslie Flower Show for six years, Sue Wallace is an expert pruner for the New Zealand Rose Society and Robert Hutchinson oversees the council gardens, which include Pollard Park and Seymour Square. All of the committee are experienced and capable gardeners with more than enough to keep them busy at home. So why volunteer for Garden Marlborough?

For Christo Saggers, landscape designer and a new committee member, it’s a chance to help encourage people to get into their gardens. There’s also a strong sense of giving back to the community. Chris Gill, who moved to Blenheim in 2006 after a career with council parks and gardens around New Zealand, wants to contribute to the place he has retired to. Ann Warnock felt a similar urge after she retired as a factory manager for Sanfords in Havelock. A keen gardener, she jumped at the chance to be involved. “I started doing the minutes and then went onto the committee. I wanted to do something for the community.”

Annette Morgan jokes that someone twisted her arm to join, but she likes a challenge. Annette is coordinating Art in the Garden – a selling exhibition of works from around New Zealand on display in Bill Musgrove and Christina Mackay’s Springlands garden.

Chris Thoms was approached for the first Garden Marlborough back in 1993; initially for her catering skills. “Keith [her husband] and I made 70 packed lunches for the guests. The second year we made 200, then 500, and by the fourth year it was up to 700! We were worn out after that and we stopped so we could go on the tours and have a look for ourselves.”

Their Maxwell Road garden in Blenheim is now part of the Urban Tour, which Chris says is different every year. “With the strange weather we’ve been having, I’ve no idea what’s going to be on show. The rhodos that were meant to flower in spring were all flowering in autumn. Because there’s been so much rain and not so much sun, the season’s a bit topsy-turvy but I know it will look gorgeous.”

Like Chris, Sue Monahan knows what’s involved from all angles – her garden, Upton Oaks, is part of the Rapaura Tour. She also selects the 22 gardens and puts together the itineraries. “I feel like I’m the voice on the committee for all the gardeners. Every year brings a new challenge of encouraging people who have exceptional gardens to open and share them.”

A favourite is Barewood, Carolyn Ferraby’s garden in the Awatere Valley. If Carolyn wasn’t so self-effacing I would describe her as Garden Marlborough royalty – she was one of the founding committee members back in 1993. Along with the owners of Bankhouse and Winterhome, Carolyn had a belief in the gardens of Marlborough and wanted to share them. Barewood has been part of Garden Marlborough ever since.

Barewood is classed as a Garden of National Significance by the New Zealand Horticultural Society, as is Upton Oaks. As well as keeping in touch with all the other gardeners, Sue is getting Upton Oaks up to scratch for the 350-400 people expected through the gate. In September she was shovelling on trailer-loads of mulch, putting fertiliser on the roses and hedges, and patrolling for aphids. “As Garden Marlborough gets closer we have a lot of box hedging to cut – we’ll do all around the knot garden close to the time to get it really sharp.”

Exchanging her gardening gloves for her committee member’s hat, Sue will find time in the run-up to Garden Marlborough to meet garden owners and brief the tour leaders who spend the days guiding and chatting with visitors. Sue has put together a new tour this year, up into the alpine gardens and beech forest around Saint Arnaud. A portion of the ticket price will go towards a Department of Conservation forest restoration project.

Giving back to the community is part of the event’s ethos. “Hunter’s Garden Marlborough has become a community fundraiser,” says Viv. “We give grants to local organisations and schools to encourage garden projects. Last year, that amounted to more than $5,000. We’ve helped Witherlea School buy a mulcher so pruned branches can be chipped and put back on the gardens. We’ve helped Springlands School replant along their frontage, and given money to the hospice for their gardening.”

Garden Marlborough is also an opportunity for local organisations to raise funds. “Lots of organisations and schools help us out and we give them a donation. Blenheim School provides car parking and will put the welcome packs together. Fairhall School and the Alzheimer’s society are among those who make morning and afternoon teas. Other community groups have a stall at the Sunday fete to raise money.”

There are spin-offs for local businesses too: “Tango’s Shoes gets lots of women coming in over the weekend so they’re happy to be a sponsor,” says Viv. “Jane Hunter of Hunter’s Wines is a keen gardener and we’re fortunate to have had them as our principal sponsor, almost from the very start.”

Of the 4,000 people who came to Garden Marlborough last year, 50% were from outside the region, including 8% from overseas. The rest were locals, says Viv. It’s the busiest weekend in the year for hotels and motels in Marlborough, and is one of the top three events next to the Grape Ride and the Wine and Food Festival.

“Garden Marlborough is a two-way thing. We bring lots of visitors into the province and we are showing off Marlborough, but we rely on community support too,” says Viv.

As 4 November draws closer, that support kicks in. Rather like a clematis throwing out tendrils in spring, the event seems to entwine hundreds of others to help. Volunteers manage the registrations, lead the bus tours, introduce speakers at workshops, make morning and afternoon teas, give advice at the reception desk and generally do everything they can to make it a friendly and memorable experience.

Keren Mitchell, who helps meet and greet at Garden Marlborough headquarters, is one of those friendly faces. She was coordinator of the first four Garden Marlborough events and her involvement continues through Arborbank, a separate fund set up by the original committee to help schools and community groups plant trees in Marlborough.

“We made money each year with a charity auction, and we wanted the interest from those funds to be spent in a practical and appropriate way. Our grants range from $350-$1,000,” says Keren.

“We’re quite rigorous – groups supply a planting plan and list of species. It was great to give money to Redwoodtown School this year for their edible garden. The children had asked for apples, apricots, feijoas, figs, nectarines, berries and nut trees. They will learn so much.”

Arborbank has funded the planting of 1,500 trees in the past six years to projects including the Blind Creek native tree plantings at Tua Marina, landscaping at the new Selmes Road nursery and riparian plantings at Fairhall School. “It’s good to be involved; we’re invited to the plantings and get to see how enthusiastic the children are.”

Great oaks from little acorns grow… and Arborbank and Garden Marlborough are hoping the next generation will be just as keen to get out into the garden, learn from other gardeners and become volunteers too.

www.garden-marlborough.co.nz
www.arborbank.org.nz


Caption panel: The Garden Marlborough team

1. Chris Gill

“My interest in horticulture started as a boy when I lived next to one of the last remnants of an old wood in West Yorkshire. I’ve been called a ‘pack rat’ because of my obsession with collecting plants.”

2. Frank Metcalfe

“We live in the Omaka Valley and I’m big on tomatoes. I grow a range of heritage varieties from my own seed. I also have a very large potato patch on a one-time silage pit next door. I grow enough spuds for all three families involved.”

3. Sue Monahan

“I started gardening when I got married and got into it seriously when we bought our old house, which desperately needed a garden. It’s a mix of formal and informal, with lots of colour and scent. I love sharing the garden.”

4. Viv Peters, president

“I was brought up on a farm in Rapaura and my grandparents lived in Blenheim. My grandmother was a florist and grew all her own flowers – her garden was a magical place for me.”

5. Carolyn Ferraby, patron

“There’s no way I was going to wear my gardening clothes for the photo – my jerseys have holes. I had a visitor drop in and when I came out from under a bush he said, ‘Stick your arms out straight and you’d look like a scarecrow’.”

6. Ann Warnock

“I’ve just retired from eight years of doing gardening for other people. I was planning to have my own garden in Grovetown up to scratch over the winter but it’s been too wet and I’ve done almost nothing!”

7. Sue Wallace

“I prune 600-800 roses per year in Marlborough. Pruning for the elderly is my biggest joy in helping out the community. It means they can enjoy their roses even when their health is failing.”

8. Chris Thoms

“I learnt so much from looking at other gardens. People come to ours to look at the bones – how we’ve laid things out – and to get ideas to take back home to their own gardens.”

9. Robert Hutchinson

“The lawnmower is the one gardening tool I can’t do without. A nicely mown lawn offsets the garden beautifully – it doesn’t matter if the lawn is all weeds or high-end grass, neatly mown it looks good.”

10. Annette Morgan

“I was married at 20 years of age and have been weeding ever since! These days, I garden at the weekends at our bach in Queen Charlotte Sound. It’s all native plants and easy to care for, built amongst the bush.”

11. Christo Saggers

“My dad got me started in gardening. I grew up in Suffolk, England, at Otley Hall, which recently came sixth in the ‘Top 50 Best British Gardens to Visit’. It was a wonderful, fun place – gardens are such an important part of childhood.”