​

All the more reason to regard it as a political act of vandalism when almost a third of this historic  
​woodland was ordered to be demolished by insensitive and soulless politicians after the Christchurch earthquakes.   In the  interests of expediency, part of this historic woodland was demolished, along with much of the rest of our city under special powers brought in after the earthquakes.   They cared not for the vision of their forefathers or for the sadness and grief so many of it's citizens who were suffering after the trauma of the earthquakes.  They took it upon themselves to violate the woodland thus adding to the grief by cutting down  many of the treasured 150 year old oaks, beeches and other deciduous trees, without consulting us - the people of  Christchurch and Canterbury to whom this woodland belongs.
To them, it was the cheapest and easiest way to erect much needed hospital buildings, no matter that it encroached on the woodland of sacrosanct Hagley Park.  The need for a new hospital building is not disputed - but cutting down part of this historic woodland to accomodate it, when there was other land available certainly is!   
​It goes to show what little regard and understanding these politicians had for the history of  Christchurch, for nature, and for the sadness many citizens would feel by the destruction of such a loved part of their heritage.   This is the sort of thing which happens in China under a totalitarian government. 
Are we much better here?

Notice the contrast in the 2 images shown above illustrating the hospital building as a real intrusion into the Daffodil Woodland.   
It's the work of unscrupulous politicians ​who took advantage of their special powers while people were still traumatised after the earthquakes.  Pulling a swifty over their people, they rushed it through secretly with no consultation when they knew they could get away with it.  The first I knew of it was when  I happened to be walking in the park on a day that chainsaws were at work and was horrified to see such a huge chunk of woodland being destroyed.  None of the workmen wanted to talk about it and I just burst into tears at the wanton vandalism of this beautiful place, in the midst of such trauma and damage from ongoing aftershocks.   But this wasn't nature causing the mayhem - it was man!
The result of this wanton destruction is a huge loss of a part of our uninterrupted woodland to be replaced by a truncated view, rudely interrupted by an ugly hospital building which destroys the serenity of the green woodland of Hagley Park.   Which other city in New Zealand has a natural haven like this within walking distance - another world where nature dominates, away from the hustle and bustle of the city which is so cherished and valued by it's citizens.  It should never have been compromised in this way. 
And it was all so indecently rushed!

POSTSCRIPT
Soon after the sad day I witnessed the destruction of the woodland, my son was rushed into hospital seriously ill.  So I was at the hospital everyday visiting him, at the same time witnessing the excavations for the new hospital where the woodland had been demolished.  All day every day 24/7 there was vast amounts of water being pumped out of the excavated site, and gushing into the Avon river.   It seemed there was a 'lake' under the site where the woodland had been.  How could they build on top of all that water!!  Sure enough, 9 years later this new hospital is still not being fully used due to instability of the building!!         
 

A forest of thorny twigs and branches does need to be sorted, and mid-winter when the bushes are bare is the best time to do it.  Rose pruning time!   And the Friends of Beverley Park Heritage Rose Garden are just the team to do that.  A loose group of garden lovers formed from our local Englefield community as well as rose lovers from further afield, we make up a formidable team.  

  ​

After a week of sunny days, the bright blue of Muscari (Grape Hyacinths) and white Snowflakes began to appear beneath the bare roses in the border facing outward to the park.  The roses had not yet started to leaf up, but that didn't stop the Grape Hyacinths and Snowflakes making an appearance.

Typically spring - just as everything started to flower responding to spring warmth, the weather plummeted again, and winter returned with snow on the mountains and frosts but - no matter - spring bulbs keep flowering despite the fickle weather.  

And by September the Yoshino cherrys at the entrance to the Rose Garden are flowering.
Now we truly know that spring is here!!
Two Yoshino Cherry trees either side of the pathway mark the entrance to garden, and  there are also 2 more planted in the lawn at the front of the garden which frame the rose garden. 
​Soft pink, light and dainty with single flowered blossoms, they are reminiscent of bridal veils, and many think that these are the most beautiful  of all the cherry blossoms.
This is the same variety which is planted around Hagley Park, and they are native to Japan - hence the name - Yoshino Cherry. 
The botanical name, Prunus yedoensis, is not quite so romantic. 
The pruned roses can hardly compete with the delicate beauty of the Yoshino Cherry which surrounds them in spring, however even they  are softened by new seasons leaf growth, starting to burst forth.
And still the Hellebores keep giving, looking fresh.  They flower nonstop from the end of June through to September.  We love them!  And even the early Snowflakes, now more green than white, are still persisting.  

​Above varieties
​'Gertrude Jekyll' - english rose - climbing up through the metal rose supports.
​'Ballerina' - hybrid musk - bushy rose with single pink flowers in clusters in the middle ground . 
Rosa glauca 'Carmenetta' - species - a great arching bush in the foreground with single pink species blooms nestled amongst it's attractive glaucus foliage

Such is the power of Pasternaks writing, as he equates the coming of winter with the pathos of a child mourning his mothers death.  His words touch me, so that when I too, see those last clinging leaves  and hear them tapping on my bedroom window at night, I remember Yuri's despair.   Even in the southern hemisphere  a world away from Russia's cruel winters,  I still feel a sense of loss for the season past.  Knowing that that particular season is lost in time and will never come back - a death in it's own right. ​

When I went out this morning to tidy up my messy garden, I looked hard and thought - it's actually not messy at all!   It's simply what happens in May, so instead of cutting back and tidying as I had planned, I grabbed my camera and started taking photos.    You can see the results below. 
​This change of heart was in part, inspired after I had watched the film - 

'Five Seasons: the Gardens of Piet Oudolf'. ​

Piet Oudolf is an influential Dutch garden designer, plant nursery man and author. He is a leading figure of the "New Perennial" movement and designs plant compositions using bold drifts of herbaceous perennials and grasses which are chosen at least as much for their structure as for their flower colour.​  He designed the planting for the famous High Line Garden in New York  as well as many other well known gardens in North America, Northern Europe and Britain.  One of his most  acclaimed gardens in Britain is the Hauser and Wirth garden in Somerset called Oudolf Fields.  He believes in appreciating the long lived beauty of a plant, lasting well beyond its flowering period into its reproductive seedhead phase and beyond into decay.  

  
We so often think of colour in autumn, and it's true - the fiery crimsons, golds and oranges of autumn foliage are a sight to behold.  But so are the browns and bleached out beige's of dried seedheads and decay.  It is in these understated dried plant skeletons that we can now easily see the structures and shape, and as Piet Oudolf says that, too, is to be appreciated. 

But we can't have a story about autumn without colour so here goes!

Also within my bubble is the Red Zone and the wide open spaces this offers alongside the Avon river and environs.  So yesterday for my daily walk, I turned east instead of west into more beautiful tree lined river landscapes flaunting their autumn colours and the further east I went, the more the vistas opened out into ever widening empty landscapes. 
Yet within these open landscapes, there are rectangular lines of shrubs and trees delineating the gardens which had once been there and the sadly bare central spaces within these boundaries where peoples homes had  been before they were demolished. 
It's  an eerie sight and an eerie feeling as you can almost hear the ghostly sounds of absent people - the voices of children playing, lawns being mown, cars pulling into driveways and neighbours calling to each other as they went about their daily business. 
​Where there had been active and thriving communities, there is now nothing except ghostly rectangular outlines of shrubs which once enclosed someones home. 

The further east I walked the more the old earthquaked road narrowed and became more rutted, and the wide open spaces of before began to close in again with more mature trees. I realised I was coming to something special and sure enough planter boxes appeared along the track and pots with flowers spilling out of them, and there were signs and steps up to a sheltered garden raised slightly above the road.  It was the entrance to the Richmond Community Garden.

I'm fortunate in my bubble, as there are many places within  walking distance, and those pictured above are just some of them. 

  How to amuse yourself during Covid 19?  We get the message loud and clear - STAY AT HOME - So what does home have to offer?  Lots - if you have a garden, and even more if you have a park in your neighbourhood!   I am lucky enough to have a Heritage Rose Garden in my local park - Beverley Park Heritage Rose Garden.  And not only that - I have the Red Zone too, and the recently redesigned Avon Loop walkway, all within walking distance - so I am spoilt by choice.

Although I know my weedy beauties can be invasive or even plague-like, I appreciate them because they come back in abundance every year like old friends, and in a small garden it is no problem to cull these marauders out in spring.  Owners of large gardens may not feel the same way!!  
​With these 'weeds' in my garden I look forward to late summer when they have grown tall finding their way up to the light  between the perennials in the most fetching way.  This, when they are at their best either flowering or setting seed.   

Earlier this season I was not so vigilant about thinning out the weeds in the spring. Usually I clear the seedlings away from the edges of the borders so they do not block pathways, but this year I left them just for fun.  And it has been fun - they lean over the pathways most fetchingly.  So much so that I need to part a space between the gorgeous things to weave my way down the path to the shed.  And they feel so nice brushing against my face and body, and most importantly slow my journey down the garden path and in the process I notice more of what is what is going on around me in the garden. 
​So it is all a very sensuous business, and isn't that what gardening is all about - the senses?  Sight , sound, smell and touch!   Today, after a most welcome shower of rain overnight - the first for 2 months - these 'weeds' are leaning even more heavily over the path because they are bowed down with raindrops which means getting down to the shed is a very damp business today.  A lovely cooling wet sensation after the dry heat of the last few weeks.

I do, because I know that if I don''t, I won't be able to stand the sad look of them come late summer.  In my own garden it's easy, as I don't have that many roses.  Except climbers which are always labour intensive when it comes to dead-heading, as there is so much more of them and they climb way up high, which, for me always entails a ladder.   But it's in our nearby Heritage Rose Garden in Beverley Park, where dead-heading really takes the time, as there are 150 roses and some of them have grown into huge bushes.  However we gather together our little band of volunteers to help, but this isn't always easy in mid summer when everyone is so taken up with the Xmas and holiday season.  However maybe it isn't so sad after all, when that magnificent first flush of blooms are over, because when the roses finish and we roll on into summer, look what happens!!

Sadly I can't name these Dahlia varieties, as the tubers were given to me by friends. and no one knows what varieties they are - although I suspect from the look of them, that Keith Hammett may have had a hand in them.  They have his touch with single and semi-single blooms amongst bronze foliage.   
​I find it pays to be selective when choosing Dahlias for your garden as you can so easily end up with a mish-mash of different forms and colours, so I choose the colours and forms which blend with my garden.  For instance I like just the 2 varieties pictured above for my front garden as oranges and scarlets are dominant in the front garden and I like the single forms in this situation as they suit the mini-prairie style which I have planted with grasses and simple flowers.  While in my back garden the prevailing colours are crimson, magenta and Burgundy, so the 2 Dahlias there are also in those colours.  

​GRASSES

Grasses are really a whole other story which I should keep for another time, another place, however I will just say that I would not be without them in my garden, as they add a dimension to my plantings which I find most satisfying, and which I hope the images below show.   More about these later. 
Amongst the grasses in the back garden there is a Dahlia in a completely different form - the cactus dahlia  - and this was chosen for it's dark velvety crimson, and is called appropriately 'Nuits d'Etes'.  There is also another dahlia in this garden not pictured here and it is pale pink and single with bronze foliage and definitely bred by Dr. Keith Hammett - ''Mystic Dreamer''.

​This story is not so much about plants which work well together as about gardeners who work well together.

​​Beverley Park Heritage Rose Garden is part of the Canterbury Community Gardens Association, but is not so much about producing food for the body as food for the soul.  It is a place where people come to seek solace, scent and beauty - a much needed place of serenity in our area.
As with other Community Gardens we work with volunteer support, and there is plenty of camaraderie and  friendship amongst our helpers as we work towards our common goal  -  to create something uplifting and beautiful for the wider community. 

​

​TINY SHOPS
The most imaginative and creative of projects was initiated by the Inner City East group on a vacant site where buildings had been demolished.   With the help of Greening the Rubble they, built this idiosyncratic and picturesque little streetscape on a shoestring, consisting of quaint little buildings, planter boxes and little picket fences painted orange, purple and yellow dotted amongst gardens and gravel pathways.  These funky little buildings are the Tiny Shops which  house a bookshop, a secondhand clothes shop, a bike repair shop and a cafe where you can sit outside, at tables and chairs surrounded by the garden and enjoy a great coffee when the sun shines.  A gathering place for the whole community, it was here that people also gathered on Clean-up Day to weed the garden, do running repairs, weed the gravel pathways and plant shrubs flowers, and veggie plants which had been donated to the project.  

​It was a most successful day not only  in the spruce-up of Tiny Shops, but in the camaradarie of people from all walks of life working together for a common cause.  The thing I enjoyed most was working and chatting with people and families I would otherwise never have met - moving me out of my comfort zone and broadening my appreciation of other ethnic and social groups.  And joining together afterwards to enjoy a barbecue lunch organised by  Tiny Shop tenants.   Participating in the Cleanup Day was the most fun I have had for a long time, cost nothing and gave a great sense of satisfaction to be involved in a spruce up for Tiny Shops, a much needed beacon of hope in an area down on it's luck.      ​

​A month ago towards the end of July, I joined a group of Galanthophiles - becoming one myself - on a Snowdrop tour to the deep south.  These included visiting some famous southern gardens which are Snowdrop heaven, including Larnach Castle, Maple Glen and Blue Mountain Nurseries in Tapanui.  I don't know that any of the owners of these gardens have had convenient great-great-grannies.  I think these were people who had slogged over the years for the pure love of Snowdrops to understand the differences between the varieties, and to spread many of these favoured varieties throughout their own gardens.  We were lucky enough to see the fruits of their labours over many years.