WELLINGTON
How does your heritage garden grow? In Glenside, north of Johnsonville, the Heritage Gardeners are cultivating a garden of trees, fruits and flowers that were grown in New Zealand before 1900. WORDS: Claire Bibby
IMAGES: Glenside Progressive Association
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he Guelder rose, Tom Putt apple and Honeycomb flower are a few plant names that would be familiar to early settlers in New Zealand but are less well-known today. At a heritage garden on a historic reserve surrounding the Halfway House, which dates from about 1885, these names are becoming established again – along with the plants. An earlier Halfway House on the site provided accommodation for people travelling between Wellington and Porirua. In 1998, the current Halfway House had been vacant for at least a decade. The lawns were overgrown, and it was a fire risk. Wellington City Council began
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Heritage Quarterly
renovations to the house in 2012 which were completed five years later. In 2010, the City Council allowed riparian planting alongside a stream which borders the garden. The Council funded a garden landscape plan, and in 2014 Claire Bibby formed the Heritage Gardeners to implement the plan. In 2016, the group planted 16 heritage fruit trees between two surviving plum trees. The Stebbings family who farmed nearby Stebbings Valley from 1864-1979 had two orchards, totalling 70 trees. Their named varieties informed the selection of plants. We chose other varieties from the 1878 catalogue of Masterton nurseryman, William McCardle.
Wellington City Park Ranger, Denise Clements, describes the research behind the plant selection as incredibly well thought out. “Everything is dated or traced back to a source. There is no compromising in what’s there,” she said. She cites a high point accompanying the Heritage Gardeners to Auckland to visit our property, Highwic, as well as Hawthorn Dene and Howick Historic Village, to learn how other heritage gardens are managed. Heritage Gardener Lorna Webb says that finding the correct plants is a real challenge. “We want to find the early versions, the right plants that were used at the time and what the colonials actually had in their gardens,” she explains. RAUMATI • SUMMER 2021
