View from the deck - January 2015

Managing our own parks.

The Council is suggesting that communities manage and maintain their own parks and reserves.

The model being identified is that of a community garden. However each community is different and will want different things from their local park.  I guess within each community there will be a variety of views.

One model is not going to suit over 1000 parks in Christchurch.

This opportunity for communities to have even more say in local parks is good.

There are however some reservations. The small parks are part of a network of parks throughout the city. They provide

• Spaces where larger trees can be grown as sections become smaller and smaller.
• Habitats or resting places for birds and other native animals
• Different recreational experiences in each park
• Green infrastructure in a more tightly and densely populated urbanised city.
• Play opportunities which are about child learning, development and risk management

I note from a recent radio programme that NZ has only 8% of its urban area in green space compared to many European cities which can have up to 40% green space.

In this proposal of the Councils there are opportunities for communities to develop great and unique horticultural parks that provide opportunities for recreation, play, food production, social spaces, wildlife habitats, conservation, ornamental gardening and the like.

Alan Jolliffe

View from the Deck in December 2014

Late spring and lunch on the deck is just great. Gardens are colourful, birds are singing and the holiday seasons is almost upon us.

Looking back it has been a good year but it seems they get shorter each year! Time to think about next year and what we can do to make Christchurch a brighter place.

Trees are the backbone of our garden city and we need to keep planting them. Introduced and native trees are both important for our city scape ensuring colour, texture and form all year round. Also food and shelter for our native birds and wildlife.

Great design of our public and private open spaces and gardens. We should tell everyone we want bold design. There is too much the same around the city these days. All playing it safe.

Choice of plants, trees, shrubs, perennials etc. We have got into what is called bread and butter lines. Cheap and easy to produce in large volumes. Lets demand better quality plants and a more interesting variety of plants (both native and introduced).

Better horticultural management of plants and spaces. We seem to be going backwards in the way we look after and manage plants. Very short term  thinking and very little long term management for great specimens and displays  for the next 100 years.

Long live the horticulturist.

View from the Deck May 2014

Over the weekend we were able to have lunch on the deck and I reflected on the talk given by Prof Dave Kelly at the CHS last week. In a nutshell he told us that birds are really important in spreading  native plant seeds and shifting pollen from one plant to another. The best birds are Silvereye, Bellbird, Tui and Keruru.

So I counted the birds at home, 30 silvereye, 5 Fantails, 4 blackbirds, two thrush, 8 sparrows and  2 starlings. Also two monarch butterflies. Not bad! We have only had bellbirds in the trees  for short periods in the last two years. We also have had kingfishers and white faced herons, ducks, pukeko and  a few others.

So the best we have is silvereyes, a few bellbirds, no tui and no keruru. Tui were extinct in Canterbury and have been reintroduced and keruru are increasing slowly in numbers.

To increase the numbers we have to look at bird habitats where there is plenty of shelter, food and water with no cats or other predators. Easy? Not likely.  We need to spend a bit of extra time thinking about our gardens and urban landscape, what to plant where and then keep our predator population down.

I am looking forward to Colin Meurk’s talk on 12 June about “Threats and opportunities  for native plants in Canterbury “ so I can increase  plant numbers and bird numbers.

View from the Deck April 2014.

Recently I was able to be part of the Edible Gardens Awards in 2 City Community Boards - Lyttleton Mt Herbert and Shirley Papanui. Great evenings and wonderful to meet these people who put so much into their plots of land.

BUT like all evenings it got me thinking. We live in changing times.

When I look back at early photos of houses in Christchurch and Canterbury there were no flower gardens and only vegetable and fruit gardens. There was no place for ornamental plants except in the park. Move forward 100 years and we see the increasing growth of ornamental gardens, the front garden, setting off a nice house. Out the back there was the traditional vegetable and fruit garden. I can still recall ours from the 1960’s.

More recently we see the need for presentation of a nice section, landscaped with trees, shrubs and ornamental plants and little else.

Hang on where is the vegetable patch and fruit trees?

All the people who entered the edible gardens award were so proud of their garden it did not matter that it did not look ornamental but that it was productive. Mind you some of them were spectacular production gardens. Nice fresh food from the land. Not to mention the fresh eggs and pet rabbits.

What might our gardens look like in the future?

I leave you to ponder about how we can merge ornamental gardens with edible gardens? How long will it be before our ornamental gardens are more edible than ornamental? What sort of interesting designs will people come up with? When will pumpkins be used as ground cover under roses?

Gardens are going to be a lot different in the future as the next generation think about the origins of their food and take production into their own hands with their green fingers.