19 minute read
He piko, he taniwha: around every bend is something special
Derek (Gus) Flower, Operations Manager, Hamilton Gardens, New Zealand
Introduction
Hamilton’s greatest asset, the jewel in the crown, unique, the place transformed from a dump site to paradise gardens — the accolades go on and on. Without doubt Hamilton Gardens has firmly put Hamilton on the map, giving Hamiltonians something to be very proud of — not just nationally but also on an international scale. Its growing reputation lures people from far and wide, particularly the enclosed gardens, which last year saw 505,000 visitors pass through. Summer weekends see the greatest activity. Between the COVID-19 lockdowns there were 37 days each receiving over 3,000 customers, four days with over 6,000 and one day saw a staggering 7,681 people visiting the enclosed gardens.
The land the gardens sits on has an interesting history. For Ngaati Wairere, it was home, particularly the area close to the Waikato River. Here they used the river for communication and transportation purposes, and the fertile soil on its banks for growing crops, making it a centre for horticulture. Following European settlement, the site was used for various activities, such as a dog dosing strip, a go-cart track, rifle range, sand quarry — and as the city’s main rubbish dump during the 1960s.
Early years
In 1960, 4 acres of Hamilton East Town Belt was handed over to Hamilton City Council for use as a public garden. This area became the Victorian Flower Garden. The Rogers Rose Garden opened in 1971 and was the first substantial garden. Over the years a magical transformation has taken place across a total of 42.3 hectares with the development and creation of something truly special.
During its time the gardens has witnessed numerous turning points, been subjected to the usual local politics and benefited from great support and external sponsorship. Locally, The Friends of Hamilton Gardens have been a huge supporter and benefactor. Formed in 1988, The Friends is a registered charity with around 450 members. Besides acting as volunteers in the information centre/ shop daily, they host numerous annual events, propagate and sell plants, sponsor gardens and a range of assets and have initiated an annual scholarship for staff development.
Key staff and management have contributed many years of professional dedication and love to make the gardens what it is today. However, its status and world recognition can be attributed to the vision and expertise of one person, Dr Peter Sergel. From 1979 to his retirement in 2020, Peter created and guided these gardens with incredible attention to detail and accuracy. For everyone involved the journey has been inspiring, with all of us wanting to be part of it, giving us an immense sense of pride.
Taking shape
The gardens divide into two distinct areas. The first is an outer area with landscaped grounds including camellia, rhododendron and rose collections, formal bedding and native areas. It also affords large lawn areas with mature trees, picnic areas and a good network of footpaths traversing the site, providing views of the city, local mountains and the Waikato River as one of its boundaries.
However, it’s the enclosed gardens that make the gardens special and what all the fuss is about. They currently cover around 3.7 hectares and contain 18 separate gardens. The recent development program has been breathtaking at times, with the seven most recent gardens created within the last nine years. The pace is set to continue with plans to add three new gardens, increasing this area to 4.2 hectares. These will be a Baroque, Medieval and Pasifika Garden. Let’s talk a little about their development and how those maintaining them have also developed, learning new skills and adapting to new roles.
A point of difference
At this point I’d like to mention that Hamilton Gardens is not a botanic garden. From the outset a conscious decision was made to do something different with the gardens, akin to a museum. The ‘living museum’ idea evolved, where these gardens would tell stories to educate visitors about our relationship with plants and gardens over time.
Focusing on key times throughout history and incorporating some of the more influential global gardening styles and designs, the storytelling spans the centuries, pausing at pivotal magical moments when gardens had something to teach, enriching our lives. The 18 current gardens allow visitors not to just step back in time appreciating the skills and knowledge of their creators — it allows them to immerse themselves in an experience in one day. This is, I believe, unique.
Back to the future
Last year saw the opening of the Ancient Egyptian Garden, allowing the gardens to boast a garden history timeline of 4,000 years, stretching from the stunning Egyptian Temple Garden to a Concept Garden. Concept gardens are at the vanguard of landscaping and like conceptual art, their intention is to make you think, as well as providing messages.
Formally laid out with a grid of eight gardens, one central water feature and carefully positioned titoki trees, the Concept Garden invites you to pause, think and question. The central concept that this garden presents is that although we might like to think we are in charge of the land, in the end, nature will show us otherwise.
Covering around 600 square metres, the grid is accessed on all four sides by a perimeter footpath with native planting. The garden communicates with us through two Maaori whakatauki (proverbs), and map legends.
An inscription on a white wall tells us ‘Hepeketangata,apahepeketitoki’ — ‘the human family lives on while the branch of the titoki falls and decays.’ As a mark of respect, Maaori customarily smeared the dead with red ochre, giving them high status. The trunks on the 16 titokis are painted with ochre-coloured paint, giving them their own mark of distinction. As one interpretation of the whakataukii implies, as the population grows, the land uses depicted grow, at the expense of special trees, environments and waterways.
The second whakataukii can be seen on a large steel pipe in the garden’s corner, with plants growing from its top. It reads ‘Whatungarongaro te tangata toituu te whenua’; ‘as man disappears from sight, the land remains.’ The message here is that in the end, nature will win.
The third communication is inspired by land use maps that incorporated square boxes denoting various land uses. The connection here is shown by the nine garden areas linking plantings of Muehlenbeckia with native bushland, carpet roses with urban areas, lemon citrus with horticulture, Carex with tussock grassland, dwarf pines with coniferous forest, Manuka with scrubland, Oioi with wetland and the central pool representing water bodies.
A consistent height of vegetation across the eight gardens was required to achieve the map legend effect. Staff prepared the beds incorporating appropriate soil mixtures for the different plants and focused all their skills and techniques to reach the centres of these mass-planted areas for maintenance purposes. For colouring the tree trunks, a special diluted paint mixture is used that does not harm the trees.
The Egyptian Garden, believed to be first and only recreation of its type, displays extreme attention to detail and accuracy. It is modelled on a temple garden and visits to Egypt and the British Museum formed part of the research. These temple gardens were seen as a meeting place between heaven, earth and the underworld and were used by priests performing rituals using specific plants, vegetables and fruits grown in the garden.
Diligent sourcing and detailed planting using the ancient cubit measurement for spacing has resulted in a snapshot of ancient Egyptian gardening with mixed borders of broad bean, cornflower, lettuce, marjoram, pomegranate, poppy and radish, among others. Rows of trees have been planted using carob, fig, olive, palm, pine nut, Tamarix and willow, with water irrigation channels linking them through the sand, while the highly decorative pergolas have vines growing up them providing shade. The amazingly colourful hieroglyphics on the surrounding walls and the majestic temple pillars, stylised in the form of the papyrus plant, reflected on the central pool with its fish, really steal the show.
Careful design, planning and planting means each garden is screened from its neighbour. Having these garden ‘rooms’ allows visitors to step from one garden world to another, experiencing something totally different in each one. This is very much the case with the Egyptian Garden. On each side of its entrance stands a massive wall representing two mountains on the horizon, between which the sun would rise each day, symbolising rebirth. Being channelled through this passageway and emerging into a brightly coloured world of architecture with its detailed plantings provides an instant wow factor.
Mass colour
The same can be said upon entering the Indian Char Bagh Garden. Visitors pass through a cool, covered white-walled passageway to emerge in and be instantly dazzled by 4,000 annual bedding plants around a central water feature in four square beds. The garden plan is based on the Taj Mahal and has high white walls, white floor tiles, a pavilion with two towers and another fountain. A Char Bagh is an enclosed four-part garden and between the 8th and 18th centuries these types of gardens were spread throughout the Muslim world from Asia and north Africa to Moorish Spain.
Every year, three complete plant changeovers take place to guarantee a quality bedding display year-round. Such is the demand for this garden, particularly for weddings, that staff perform a monster effort with each replacement. All 4,000 plants are removed, soil prepared and gardens replanted in only two to three days. This is all the more remarkable when you realise that entry for this operation is via one pedestrian door. It’s a stark fact that with most of the gardens being so intimate and enclosed that access for maintenance, be it staff, equipment or vehicles, is very limited.
Rising to the challenge
Both gardeners and grounds staff have risen to numerous challenges over the years to facilitate the amazing creativity of landscape design and the demands of aspiring to be world class. In the early days, qualifications largely meant amenity horticulture and turf with Growsafe, first-aid and tractor driving. The diversity and ever-evolving working environment has required staff to become trained and qualified in a wide range of skills. These include Arboriculture Level 4, traffic management, operating elevated work platforms, use of ropes and harnesses, pest control, fire warden training and enforcing the parks by-laws as a warrant card officer.
Another significant change has been to staff job descriptions to promote strong positive engagement with the public. Customer service is a key component in everyone’s role. From meeting and greeting, to answering questions, be it ‘Where’s the toilet?’ or ‘What’s the name of that plant?’, to leading guided tours, gardeners and grounds staff have truly risen to the challenge.
Through my own experience and speaking as a gardener, two topics that are guaranteed to get the attention of other gardeners are food and plants. Smokos and shouts at the gardens are quite special using any excuse to celebrate and indulge. Regarding the plants, the love and pride has always been there but now with encouragement and a boost in confidence, staff are excelling in talking to the public about ‘their’ gardens and the plants within.
Structures and sculptures
As with most gardens, the structures in the gardens play a major role and help to link garden spaces. Numerous structures and art works affirm the various timelines, all with incredible attention to detail and even using specific imported materials at times. Some of the finest examples include the Chinese Ting pavilion, modelled on the 12th century Song Dynasty, a Japanese pavilion in a garden of the 16th century monochromatic era, a replica stone Tudor pavilion from 16th century England, and a pavilion and Berceaux (trellis arch) from the Italian Renaissance period with a central dome about 8 metres high.
The relationship between the gardens and artwork has been an interesting and rapidly developing one. In 1968, Molly McAllister’s bronze ‘Little Bull’ was unveiled at the Victorian Flower Garden and in 1991 the gardens were the scene of protests following the erection of Horus and Sobek, the Egyptian gods. The concern was that they would develop a pagan following. Despite attacks and damage, the 1.8 m high statues have prevailed and still stand in a courtyard area.
In 2005, a major artwork was completed either side of the main gate entrance alongside Cobham Drive. This impressive piece of work by sculptor Chris Booth and weaver Diggeress Te Kanawa is called Nga Uri O Hinetuparimaunga. It comprises 21 columns of local Hinuera stone, five of which are covered by an earth blanket, or Kākahu. Erosion of Hinuera stone formed and shaped much of the Waikato region over thousands of years. In his artwork, Chris Booth wanted to convey a message about disrespect for Mother Earth. That disrespect is symbolised by Diggeress Te Kanawa’s Te Kahu o Papatūānuku, the Mantle of the Earth Goddess, which protects and covers five of the columns. The Kākahu is made from 12,000 quartz pebbles and 1,000 greywacke pebbles, each one drilled and woven together with stainless steel, creating the form of a draped cloak over the standing stones.
The Tudor Garden also contains some incredible artwork, including the detailed knot garden, which is based on the drawings of 16th century writer Thomas Hill. Using Euonymus hedging, the wonderful patterns of the four square gardens are emphasised by crushed coal or red bricks in the gaps. Above them rise eight evenly spaced poles in the trademark green and white Tudor colours. On top of each pole sits a mythical or heraldic beast representing and holding the crest of famous Tudors. These include a griffin for Henry VIII, a dragon for Elizabeth I, the representation of Mary Queen of Scots by a unicorn and Sir Francis Drake by a phoenix, while Shakespeare is identified with the character Bottom from his play, a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
These stunning figures are the creation of Anneke Bester, who also blessed the gardens with another sculptural masterpiece that stands in the planted Time Court, with its seven possible exits, six of which lead to other gardens. The sculpture depicts Alice in Wonderland accompanied by the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit and the Dormouse.
Although the exits are sign-posted you can’t help but smile when you read the quote under the sculpture from Alice in Wonderland that reads ‘If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.’
Year-round interest
With so many gardens and so much to marvel at, it’s very easy to get lost in wonder at these gardens. Provided the weather is with you, any time is a good time to visit. There’s even a tropical garden — yes, a tropical garden in Hamilton, New Zealand! Well-chosen plants including a living wall and a frost protection irrigation system that triggers at 1° C combine to create a tropical-type environment and feel, even in winter.
Other gardens include the Herb Garden, Kitchen Garden and a Sustainable Garden complete with chickens and an active beehive. An English garden from the late 19th and early 20th century showcases a sunken lawn, a white garden inspired by Sissinghurst garden in England, and a perennial border highlighting the skill and work of the famous gardener Gertrude Jekyll.
The Modernist Garden is influenced by the American landscape architect Thomas Church and comes complete with artwork, kidney-shaped pool, barbecue area and indoor–outdoor flow.
Te Parapara is a garden that came about after close consultation with local iwi (Maaori tribes). It is divided into two halves. The first is a walk-through pre-European native bush planting, while the second is devoted to Maaori produce, in particular kumara, where a plantation can be found in a quincunx formation (the shape of a five on a die). Entry to the cultivated part of the garden is through a wonderfully carved waharoa (gateway). Four other structures can be seen, including an impressive pataka (raised storehouse).
From the 17th and 18th century there’s a Chinoiserie Garden. Chinoiserie is a term that describes the European interpretation of oriental art, particularly that of China. Much of the plantings here are Chinese natives. The centrepiece of the garden is a highly decorative pavilion modelled on the Chinese house built in 1738, which stands in Stowe Landscape Gardens in England.
Staying with 18th century Europe, the Picturesque Garden is viewed by following a path through a cave, parallel to a river, and entering a tunnel before emerging at some ruins with a meadow. The Picturesque movement swept through Europe rebelling against formality and control, creating natural scenes and romantic landscapes. Woven into the walk through this garden is the story of Mozart’s Magic Flute complete with sculptures and scenes helping to bring this classic opera to life.
The weird and wonderful
One of the special things for staff working at the gardens is that by taking part in this journey through time and place, they are challenged far more than the average gardener or grounds staff, in ways that not only test their plant knowledge and technical skills, but test their ability to deal with huge visitor numbers and work with extraordinary and bespoke assets to make them look their best year-round; for example, the Mansfield Garden depicts a scene from Katherine Mansfield’s famous short story, The Garden Party. The story is brought to life with a tennis court, marquee with food and drinks on tables, a band’s instruments, a Ford Model T car, garden borders, a central lawn with fountain and a magnificent two-storey Edwardian villa. Typically, the garden entrance and exit are via a footpath, so cleaning the front roof and guttering requires staff to operate a 25 metrereach knuckle boom crane from the rear of the house and over the roof.
Opened in 2020 the Surrealist Garden was inspired by the works of artists and writers from the 1920s and 1930s, like Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud who delved deep into the subconscious mind, the world of dreams and the irrational. The results of these bizarre and challenging ideas and theories gave rise to surrealism appearing in the garden landscape. In this garden, we find a giant gate, wheelbarrow, garden fork and tap, all five times their normal size, with the lawns curled up in the corners.
Towering high above the garden are what have affectionately become known as Trons. Some of these 22 quite sinisterlooking biomorphic shapes are over 9 m high with long arm-like limbs entirely clad in ivy. Through internal electric-powered mechanisms, some move their long tendrils just to keep you on your toes.
Great effort is made to work with the local community, particularly when creating a new garden or feature. This has enabled the gardens to connect with a wide range of cultures and interests. On the opening of the Tudor Garden guests were entertained by a group of performers who wore period customs and played Tudor instruments. Another highly entertaining day was the introduction of the Steampunk airship to the gardens. Tethered to the ground and ready for take-off, the Huddleston, as it become known, is very popular with visitors. For the unveiling, along with special guests and dignitaries, over 30 Steampunk enthusiasts were in attendance, dressed in their Victorian-era industrialism costumes.
Forward to the future
A hot topic and debate that has lasted some years has been admission fees, due to be introduced next year. Coinciding with these will be the completion of a new Entry Precinct. The development will include a new visitor arrival centre, with upgrades to the existing pavilion, improving its capacity for function room hire and facilities, plus enhancements to the existing cafe. Generation of revenue is regarded as vital if these iconic and much-loved gardens are to succeed in the future.
The marketing of the gardens has dramatically accelerated in recent years with other streams of revenue identified, including the hiring of audio guides. The gardens is a venue for events, with thousands entertained over the years, and thousands more expected in future. The demand for guided tours has soared and these are being tailored for specific groups. The ‘behind the scenes tour’ is popular and allows for glimpses of new developments and inside the gardeners’ sheds — the public’s interest in which never dwindles.
The speculation and anticipation of its next chapter is a constant conversation here in Hamilton. Interestingly, I was asked ‘Do you think the gardens is losing its innocence?’ I’d like to think it will be a case of it ‘coming of age’ and rising to its true potential. The staff here have an immense affinity to the place. They’ve nurtured these gardens every step of the way, putting in their blood, sweat and tears. They and ‘their’ gardens have grown and flourished in sync. Prepare yourselves — the best is yet to come as the gardens gear up to wow visitors with an even greater array of experiences and events.
