Life + Style - 6 November 2020

21 August, 2015

life+style The Weekend Sun 1

SPECIAL EDITION

THE WEEKEND

This year’s festival

Gorgeous Gardens

Amazing Art

Bike Trails

Sensational Sounds

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life+style The Weekend Sun 21˜ August, 2015°˛°˛ November,

Bay of Plenty Garden and Art Festival 2020

What’s happening this year MUSIC • ART • GARDENS The 12th biennial Bay of Plenty Garden and Art Festival has been avidly anticipated this year.

The festival, which runs for four consecutive days from November 19 – 22, has new ways to explore, experience and enjoy an exciting and diverse range of gardens and art.

The ticket system has been updated from previous festivals with a one-day ticket now known as a ‘Day Ticket’, and the multi-day/four-day ticket is now a ‘Festival Pass’.

You are able to use the Day Ticket for one day only on the day of your choice and the Festival Pass allows you to visit all of the activities and gardens for the entire four days of the festival period.

The centre hub of the whole festival known as Bloom in the Bay, is this year located at Tauranga Racecourse. You will be able to pop in there any time during the festival for a coffee and delicious food options in between the garden and art stops, to plan your daily garden and art trail, or to simply spend all day there enjoying the live music, paintings, sculptures, floral a t and inspirational speakers and workshops.

E-bike hire and a bus shuttle service will both be available to all festival patrons.

Hiring an e-bike is perfect for the free-spirited adventurer wanting to explore the garden and art trail by bike. For the first time, the festi al has joined forces with Daytrippers who have created a festival bike route. You can hire an electric bike or bring your own, and grab a festival Cycle Shuttle Day Pass to hit the garden trails for a leisurely day’s ride.

“Cyclists will be given a bike trail marked festival map to guide the way and will be delivered to the beginning of the trail and collected when done – easy as!” says Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival director Marc Anderson.

“One e-bike trail goes around Tauranga and another from Te Puna to Omokoroa,” says Marc.

“And people can book a seat or hire a complete shuttle for a group tour.”

Bike shuttle stops include Omokoroa Esplanade, Wairoa Bridge Reserve, Palmers Bethlehem, Takitimu Drive Reserve, Kulim Park, Atrium Café, Gordon Carmichael Reserve and Bloom in the Bay

Hub at Tauranga Racecourse.

Given the popularity of private shuttles, this year there is an official arden & Art Festival shuttle provided by Mount Classic Tours. The shuttle will visit an assortment of venues from each zone over the four days.

An incredible 80 stops feature in the four-day Bay of Plenty Garden and Art Festival trail, spanning from Katikati to Te Puke.

“Ten are art studios and the rest are gardens,” says Marc.

“Many will also have art on display too.”

Matching artists with gardens is one of the outstanding features of this unique garden trail with local and national artists exhibiting a wide variety of work in different mediums. Being able to see artists at work in their own studios is an added delicious festival feature.

“As well as having top favourite gardens from previous years, 50 per cent of the gardens are new to the trail.”

Gardens to be explored include large sprawling country delights, courtyards, city, rural and rustic gardens. Wandering through rambling cottage gardens, urban freestyle, coastal, forest, subtropical and across immaculate lawns framed with flora extravagance is sure to enrapture all festival fans.

“We have introduced a sustainable garden element,” says Marc. “And there will be microgardens specifically sh wing you what you can do in a very small space.

“One of the gardens even has a bush walk with two islands shaped like the North and South Island. It will also have a display of tiny houses.”

At Bloom in the Bay there will be many exciting and new exhibitors and displays.

“We loved having the festival at the Historic Village in 2018 and our concept gardens are there for people to enjoy, but the racecourse gives us a chance to place more concept gardens in a different part of Tauranga,” says Marc.

The garden designs by top-notch local landscape designers range from traditional spaces inspired by the formal racing lifestyle to a garden featuring totems – or pou whenua – created from locallysourced railway sleepers.

Tauranga Floral Art Society will once again hold its Designer of the Year competition at Bloom in the Bay and will feature beautiful Dutch Flemish designs, traditional designs and contemporary designs as well

The Garden and Art Festival 2020 team

as a non-competitive display of exciting outdoor environmental art.

A new emerging artist award sponsored

by The Weekend Sun has meant that 14 finalists ha e gained experience through workshops with artist Rob McGregor, with the winners going on to exhibit their art alongside established artists in the festival.

Other displays this year include modern and stylish plant hire solutions, outdoor wall art and murals to fit any space There will be beautiful kokedama creations, organic loose leaf tea, products

for health gardens, a rose expert, demonstrations on forging from a blacksmith, making fl wer crowns, table styling, and seed bombs. There will also be interesting stalls featuring bearded irises and roses, a gumboot display, and a kids’ area.

The Long Lunch with Wendyl Nissen and Ruud Kleinpaste and a garden ramble with Ruud in Katikati as well as the range of live music from bands and performers will round off a fabulous four days.

All stories: Rosalie Liddle Crawford Photos: John Borren, Daniel Hines and supplied

21 August,°˛°˛ 2015 ˜ November,

life+style The Weekend Sun 3

Kim Westercov

The Garden and Art Festival shuttle provided by Mount Classic Tours.

Faye Suzannah’s festival mural at the Tauranga Racecourse.

Garden and Art Festival Director Marc Anderson with Andrew Love, Sponsorship manager of Racing Tauranga at the Bloom in the Bay venue at Tauranga Race Course.

Bloom in the Bay The festival hub Tauranga Racecourse will be the festival hub for November’s Bay of Plenty Garden and Art Festival. Called ‘Bloom in the Bay’, the hub means the racecourse will be home for four days to artists, florists, ga deners and entertainers as well as thousands of festival goers.

Little Sweethearts special festival garden will delight the kids.

Bloom in the Bay will be bursting with workshops, speakers, creative demonstrations, live music and stage acts, a kids’ zone, art exhibitions, food trucks, floral displays and competitions.

Learn a new creative skill such as decorating your Christmas table, making seed bombs and your own fl wer crowns.

Enjoy the Tauranga Floral Art Society display. Once again the society will be holding its Designer of the Year competition and floral l vers will be delighted to view the Dutch Flemish designs alongside the contemporary and classic floral a t.

Come, see and vote for the best gumboot display in the Gumboot Walk competition.

It’s galleries galore this year. As well as an exhibition of art from all the festival artists in the festival gallery, there will also be artwork displayed from The Weekend Sun’s Emerging Artists workshops and from Tauranga Society of Artists.

A blacksmith team will be sharing the secrets of this unique craft and demonstrating the traditional techniques of forging.

Speakers will cover topics such as photography with Kim Westerskov, living sustainably, edible gardening, home waste solutions, and the arboreal ark which is home to the largest collection of Northern Hemisphere trees south of the Equator.

Rose grower Rob Somerfield will demonstrate h w he

MUSIC • ART • GARDENS

pollinates and then selects roses of the future. Learn from The Garden Project’s Sally Lyttle about simple ideas to increase soil fertility and get rid of garden pests naturally. Rob Pinkey will share his passion for blacksmithing and ‘Bug Man’ Ruud Kleinpaste will have everyone falling in love with nature and bugs.

Little Sweethearts Montessori will be delighting children in the very special festival Children’s Garden.

“We are creating a fun exploration space,” says Little Sweethearts teacher Rhonda Armstrong.

“A children’s haven with planter boxes of fl wers they can cut and water. It will be a family garden party space with play activities, a swing and garden seating.

“We want children to be able to get their hands involved and experience gardening for themselves rather than going around gardens that they can’t touch.”

There are activities four times a day in the children’s garden.

“Parents will stay with their children there. Everything is free and anything they do they can take home with them,” says Rhonda.

“We’re really excited about the festival and think it is a great opportunity to showcase our facility,” says Racing Tauranga general manager Louise Dean.

“A lot of people who may not know what we offer here will see how versatile the venue is for many functions.”

Fantastic entertainment at the festival, including brilliant local musicians and performers, promises sounds that will transcend through all ages with delicious lunch and dinner options.

Free entry for kids and $5 for everyone else.

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°˛°˛ life+style The Weekend Sun 21˜ November, August, 2015

Lorraine Ryan Exploring a sloping garden It’s the first time Lorraine yan will have her sloping hillside garden on show at a Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival.

“Over the years I’ve visited lots of the lovely gardens around here and in other parts of New Zealand.

Several people have said to me ‘why don’t you enter the Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival?’ and I haven’t. Then this year someone spoke to Marc [Anderson] and he got in touch with me and I thought ‘okay, yes, alright I’ll do it’,” says Lorraine.

She found it was fun getting ready for the festival.

“Over the years I thought one day I’ll do this or that or get into that corner. I had a whole year to get ready so away I went, doing a lot of little jobs that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

When Covid struck she found she had even more time available.

“I loved it, did all sorts of little things, pruning something or revamping a corner.”

Usually she is off helping in the Te Puna Quarry or with someone else’s garden.

“I started in the herb garden at the quarry and work in different areas in a gardening capacity. On the committee we organise many different things like Shane Walker’s mural.”

She has always loved plants, gardening, nature and birds and is an accomplished floral a tist.

Her Otumoetai property with the 30-year-old, two-storey pole house, overlooks the Daisy Hardwick boardwalk and wetlands. Lorraine has been seriously gardening on it for six years after returning from overseas, discovering on clearing the overgrown section that there were existing walls and stairs. She

Private lovely oasis Tony and Bernice Wright Tony and Bernice Wright’s quiet green oasis ‘Egret’ in Maungatapu is tucked away on the edge of Fantail Reserve looking out to Rangatua Bay. It’s the first time that the secluded p operty has been part of the Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival trail.

“We enjoyed the garden for a long time ourselves and wanted to share it,” says Tony.

“We know the garden is at a point where it’s at a nice level of maturity and we’d always talked about being part of the garden trail,” says Bernice, who is a part-time teacher.

To prepare for the festival, Tony, who works for a pharmaceutical company, started a spreadsheet back in June to plan the tasks ahead.

“We divided the garden into rooms, so we could plan out what we needed to do.”

The entrance to the garden has a beautiful scent wafting from a stunning port wine magnolia hedge.

“It’s heady in the afternoon heat, just gorgeous,” says Bernice.

Tony and Bernice have three daughters, all grown up. One daughter Anna is a lover of fl wers and has her own garden opening out towards the driveway entrance.

“As Anna didn’t look out on the pool we made a more fl wery garden for her,” says Bernice.

Anna’s garden has roses, foxgloves, box hedging, annuals, forget-me-nots, stock and that heady port wine magnolia. Overheard a lilac wisteria may still be having its second flush during the festi al in November.

“The garden has evolved over time because the house changed,” says Tony.

“It used to have a rolled verandah around it and then we took it up and out.”

The couple enjoyed visiting Australian landscape designer Paul Bangay’s garden near Melbourne They liked his designs and adapted their garden, giving it a more structured look.

“It looks good all year around as we’ve put more form into it.”

Beyond Anna’s garden is a raised vegetable garden with Tony’s handmade trellis covered in a mass of sweetpeas. Nearby is rosemary, a standardised bay tree, sage, mint, beetroot, oregano, parsley, cabbages, chives, espalier pear to maximise the vertical space and self-seeded lobelia.

Through the lemon walk to the pool area, spiral topiaries delight. Citrus are tucked into sunny spots.

“There’s a couple of limes snuck in amongst the lemons, for the gin and tonics,” says Bernice.

Opposite the pool is box hedging with port wine magnolia balls. Ficus growing on the back concrete block wall gives a stunning sense of space. Four china doll trees are taken down to their stump each year before growing again into their nice fluff shapes. A pot with a twirl of buxus enhances and Queen Anne palms tower above the pool.

Flowering jasmine, a pergola and paving with sago palms and mondo grass lead on to Shirl’s garden.

“My mum Shirl died six years ago. She was a great gardener and floral a tist. I have pieces from her garden that she has given me over time,” says Bernice.

Planting there includes beautiful hostas, lovely white and green ivy, and maiden hair fern bordered by railway sleepers.

The house, pool and garden fl w from one to the other with an original design offering a welcome sense of peace and harmony and the cleverly done mass planting creates a bigger sense of space in a small lovely garden.

has been busy planting since then, adding to the existing mandarin, tangelo and camelia trees and now has a few hundred different plants and trees.

A manuka and succulents border the property on one side. Waratah, proteas, palms and further down below the property, puriri trees along with magnolia and kowhai have become favourite stops for tuis, kereru, Australian parrots and kingfishers Pathways and steps meander through a fully planted property featuring roses, perennials, annuals, succulents, bromeliads and proteas. Clipped hedges and bushes give a formal structure to the garden. Little wax eyes and sparrows like to seek out the fruit on the bird feeder table.

Her orchard and edible garden area is rich with espalier persimmon, apples, pears, grapes, figs, a wedding day rose, passionfruit, lots of herbs, and an area of edible weeds which Lorraine says are nice for smoothies.

“During Covid it was good because we had apples, figs, grapes, feijoas, passionf uit, and pears.”

The artist in Lorraine’s garden will be Stephanie Brebner. Festival goers will find tephanie and her work set up in the carport area as they arrive at Lorraine’s property.

Nature is Stephanie’s main inspiration; she has a great love for the outdoors. Trees and birds inspire many of her recycled copper wire sculptures. She also likes nothing more than bringing old things back to life and this shows in the beautifully refurbished frames that she uses for her ink, watercolour and pastel paintings and hand painted prints. These paintings are mainly of a floral natu e and have an antique influence to them.

˜ November, 21 August,°˛°˛ 2015

life+style The Weekend Sun 5

Casa Blanca Bill and Yolanda Falzone’s tropical garden Quietly rolling down the driveway to Casa Blanca in the heart of Katikati, there is a sense of peace and enjoyment that increases on seeing the subtly stately home with its Australian style wraparound verandah.

The one-hectare property has been entered before in the Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival with the owners who built the house, but this is the first time that cur ent owners Bill and Yolanda Falzone have participated.

“The previous owners did quite a lovely job of landscaping,” says Bill, who is a retired arborist.

“We’ve added to that.”

Dahlias, roses, lavender and hydrangeas greet you as you arrive, with an exuberance of bougainvillea splashing itself across the garage.

Strolling around the side of the house, you quickly take in the water and mountain views from this tropical garden with its mature palms and giant birds of paradise.

The garden also boasts a fl wering cherry, cabbage trees, a jacaranda, a Tahitian lime, roses, and a tulip tree.

A child’s sandbox, and a circle with a fi e pit surrounded by outdoor chairs are new additions, along with the planting along the front of the property.

“We enjoy sitting out here,” says Bill. “We put all the flax in, and a lot of f uit trees out in the orchard.”

The orchard has about 30 avocado trees, and

about another 15 fruit trees - a variety of plums, apricots, pears, apples, peaches and feijoas.

The wraparound verandah goes all the way around the house which has four bedrooms, four ensuites, six toilets and French-style windows.

“It’s actually a replica of the original homestead next door which has a similar design.”

On one side is a large vegetable area where Bill and Yolanda have been growing courgettes, watermelon, lettuces, cabbages, onions, tomatoes, beans, coriander as well as grapes.

“We’re quite self-sustained here. The only thing we don’t grow is our own beef. We can grow all our own vegetables and Yolanda makes a lot of Mexican salsa.”

Yolanda also makes great jam out of the grapes.

“We also have quite a few citrus and mandarins. And we get quite a lot of bananas.”

A grass strip trail with steps runs along the front of the property with banksia, flax, pongas cabbage tree and a tulip tree. Bill has recently put in new hebes around the deck area that also features a succulents.

For those who love roses the couple have old fashioned roses as well as modern roses across the lawn which is ideal for playing pétanque or croquet. Some camellias, a blue cedar, phoenix palms and fruit trees including a loquat run along the other side of the house and the quince tree looks like it will be loaded this year.

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November, life+style The Weekend Sun 21˜ August, 2015°˛°˛

Clive Armstrong Recycled scrap metal artist Walking into Clive Armstrong’s metal world is to be surrounded by characters that have come to life with expressions and personalities all of their own.

A tall man of steel surrounded by three dogs greets me. His arms are made from a fl wing stream of spanners, his moustache was once a horse shoe. Another metal fellow has boots made from fi e extinguishers, and his body was once an expansion chamber off an exhaust from a two-stroke motorbike. The legs are exhaust pipes.

Originally from a dairy farm in Reporoa, Clive attended Te Puke High School, works at the port, and has been making his metal characters for about 20 years.

“I started doing it because I wanted art in my own garden that was original so I started making it for myself and the odd friend and it sort of went from there.

“I had an exhibition and people seemed to like it.”

An old petrol tank from a motorcycle has been transformed into a dog. There are people riding cycles, and one fellow riding a fish.

His ‘man cave’ has echoes of his days as the lighting technician for the band Nightshade.

Guitars produced from pieces of steel hang from the walls alongside metal pig heads and metal cars, with balloon clowns overhead. One guitar that looks like a Harley Davidson has a neck from an old builder’s square with imperial

Beauty in paint Rhianna McCormick-Burns Rhianna McCormick-Burns loves the quote ‘Art enables us to fin ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time’.

“For me painting isn’t just something I enjoy doing, but it acts as a medium that allows me to feel lost in a moment without thought, focused and at peace, a lot like meditation,” says Rhianna.

The 28-year-old, self-taught artist paints from her beachside home at Papamoa and primarily focuses on themes of women and nature in her paintings.

Her vibrant portraits celebrate her subjects’ individuality and she uses traditional methods to paint captivating still life but with a distinctive contemporary feel. Her work is fin and detailed, with clear lines showing a well-honed skill as well as a pleasure she clearly has in painting.

“I have always held an intrigue with faces and the stories they hold,” says Rhianna.

“Throughout my twenties I spent my time traveling to lively and culturally diverse destinations and found myself developing a deep fascination with unique beauty.”

Encouraged by her experiences and the people she’d met along the way, she began filling a small sketchbook wit

drawings from what she had found had inspired and uplifted her.

Returning home to New Zealand in 2016, Rhianna began to re-create these sketches as vibrant oil paintings.

“An artist’s job is to make you look at life again. They show you how they see the world and their experiences, a glimpse in time. My hope is to create work that is uplifting and inspiring.”

She takes inspiration from one of her favourite artists Vladimir Tretchikoff – which makes sense because of the similar themes and vibrant use of colour. Though her paintings have some influence of design, most likely becaus of her fashion photography and graphic design background, there is still a clear painterly quality to her pieces.

“I find the way that light hits m subjects particularly fascinating.

Capturing light is something I aim to show in the paintings.”

Using oil paints Rhianna spends about three to four weeks to create each piece, often working across a few paintings at a time. She uses photos of friends or local models to re-create her vision.

Rhianna takes commissions for paintings or drawings in either charcoal, oil or as a pencil sketch, and has originals as well as limited edition prints of her work. Her paintings are gaining recognition on the NZ art scene.

rule markings on it.

He puts a lot of thought into each piece. Most are carefully constructed from found objects that he fits togethe .

“My welder is like my hot glue stick. I like finding a piece that is the shape of something rather than making it out of a whole lot of rubbish. It’s trying to find a piece that suits, so it takes a lot more time.

“I like using the antique stuff. People say ‘that’s an antique’ but it just sits somewhere and never gets looked at. When you put it in a piece of art it gets looked at.”

He goes to swap meets and markets to find old parts.

“Fellas are selling all their old junk, chucking out their old tools, had them for years and get rid of them. You find inte esting shaped things.

“Sometimes I start making something and half way through it, it becomes something else. That does happen quite often.”

Quirky details and humour gets magically added.

“You’ve got to have a bit of humour in the art”.

Mostly Clive creates metal art pieces for himself in his own garden, but enjoys exhibiting them too. He’s been part of the Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival in the past, exhibiting in a garden. This time he will be at Bloom in the Bay at the Tauranga Racecourse every day of the four-day festival.

“This will be my fifth time exhibiting at the festival. I’m looking forward to it.”

˜ November, 21 August, °˛°˛ 2015

life+style The Weekend Sun 7

Cycling the countryside Explore the gardens by e-bike Exploring the countryside, filling the ai with laughter and banter while coasting along with friends on electric bikes seems like the perfect way to experience some of the fabulous gardens and art in this year’s Garden and Art trail.

For the first time, the ay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival has joined forces with DayTrippers, Tauranga’s cycle trail specialists, who have created bike routes to explore the festival gardens.

You can hire cool electric bikes or bring your own, and grab a festival Cycle Shuttle Day Pass to hit the garden trails for a leisurely day’s ride. You don’t need to be a fitness fanatic to enj y the relaxed outdoor cycle adventure.

“Cyclists will be given a bike trail marked festival map to guide the way and will be delivered to the beginning of the trail and collected when done – easy as!” says Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival director Marc Anderson.

“One E-Bike trail goes around Tauranga, and another from Te Puna to Omokoroa.”

Bike shuttle stops include Omokoroa Esplanade, Wairoa Bridge Reserve, Palmers Bethlehem, Takitimu Drive Reserve, Kulim Park, Atrium Café, Gordon Carmichael Reserve and Bloom in the Bay Hub at Tauranga Racecourse.

BayTrippers’ latest giant electric bikes are available for hire and come complete with all safety gear.

Cyclists will be given a bike trail marked festival map to guide the way and will be delivered to the beginning of the trail and collected when done.

“Marc has had a desire for a while to introduce the cycle trail element to the Garden and Art Festival,” says DayTrippers director Miles Johnson.

“During lockdown we mapped all the trails in Tauranga, the Mount, Papamoa and Omokoroa, and from that we looked at the festival garden placements on the trail, and came up with a city trail which encompasses ten gardens, and the Omokoroa cycle trail which encompasses eight gardens.”

Miles, who has ridden bikes all his life, says the city circuit is about ten kilometres, and the Omokoroa trail from Omokoroa to the Wairoa River bridge is about 24 kilometres.

“It’s not difficult on an e-bike. eople can come to the festival for three to four days, spend one day riding and one day driving. It’s a cool idea and adds another element to the overall festival offering.”

The whole concept of the cycle trail was to provide hire bikes but Miles is assuming there will be a whole body of people with their own bikes as well.

“Our Trail Shuttle can get you and your bike to the local cycle trails so you can just ride. We can shuttle you to or from Omokoroa to ride the amazing new Coastal Cycle Trail. Let us pick you up and drop you off with ease.”

Miles says people who are less active or older can supplement their energy with electric power from the bikes.

“The e-bike revolution has brought a whole lot older people back out on bikes. You can get on and off with your e-bike at set location points on the map so if you don’t want to ride the whole circuit our shuttle will be doing the circuit out to Omokoroa and back and pick you up.”

Miles Johnson from DayTrippers

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November, life+style The Weekend Sun 21˜August, 2015°˛°˛

Dutch Flemish flora Blooming flowers designed into ar Two years ago, Natalie Meredith won the floral a t Designer of the Year competition at the 2018 Bay of Plenty Garden and Art Festival.

Francine Thomas

“I was absolutely thrilled to win. I’ve been doing floral a t for many years and always had a lovely interest in fl wers, but that was the first time I d entered the Designer of the Year competition.”

The Bay of Plenty Floral Art Society will once again be holding its Designer of the Year competition in conjunction with the 2020 Bay of Plenty Garden and Art Festival - Bloom in the Bay. This two-yearly event brings Bay of Plenty flora designers together to compete against one another for the prestigious title of Designer of the Year and other competition classes.

The Bay in Bloom will be the overall floral a t theme and will feature Dutch Flemish, traditional and contemporary designs, as well as stunning fascinators and necklaces made from plant material.

As part of Natalie’s winnings, she had the opportunity to represent the Bay of Plenty in the national Designer of the Year competition which was held the following March in Palmerston North.

“I placed second there. It was exciting. It’s fun planning your design, working out what you’re going to create and hoping it all comes together.

“On the day you have three hours to do it. It’s an engaging challenge, lots of fun, and it’s just something that all of us floral a tists love doing.”

Francine Thomas’ talent for floral design has take her around the globe representing NZ at the World Flower Show and being an international judge and demonstrator.

During lockdown Francine ran live floral desig demonstration videos on her Facebook page.

“I picked fl wers from my garden and showed people that they can pick fl wers and make something from it.”

She has large park-like grounds, masses of fl wers and clipped hedges.

“I have a very good gardener called my husband.

We built here 16 years ago, and I planted the garden for when I was managing the fl wer market. Now we’ve pulled out anything we don’t want and underplanted the big trees.

She likes it colour coordinated. A white fl wer section has lilies, calla lilies, white geraniums, white dahlias and white orientals. White helleborus alternate with white alstromeria, and a delightful cornus controversa or wedding cake tree takes pride of place.

Another area features pinks and mauves, and husband Ash has recently created an area for espaliering fruit trees and has placed irises in colour groups.

“I love blue. Breakers tall bearded iris is my favourite, so along the front are the blues and behind are the creams, apricots and other colours.”

Francine also developed an alter-ego online as ‘Fred from Fred’s Customs’ to show how she constructs support structures for her flora art design. ‘Fred’ has generated thousands of followers to the often quirky and hilarious video demonstrations.

Francine likes to compete and helped set up the exhibition side of the floral a t competition.

“It’s a great venue down at the racecourse. We’re all enclosed this time and there’s more space. Last time it was very hard being outdoors. We can use a lot more fl wers because we’re not dependent on weather damaging them.”

This year a Dutch Flemish theme will be featured.

“It’s based on the masters’ paintings. In floral a t we go right back through history, to Egyptian time and work with styles right through to today’s styles with contemporary work.

“We’ve also decided to do a sustainability and environmentally-friendly installation, out the front on the lawn.”

“It’s going to be really nice at the racecourse this year,” says Natalie.

“There’s so much room there and we can have everything all together. I think it’s a good destination for people as they’re hopping around the gardens.”

“For me it is really about the enjoyment flora art brings, the challenge of creating a design and expressing a title, and the wonderful friendships made along the way.”

The Floral Art Competition day is on Thursday, November 19 and the exhibition will be open to the public from Friday November 20 to Sunday November 22.

Francine Thomas as ‘Fred from Fred’s Customs’

Natalie Meredith’s winning floral art design in the 2018 Designer of the Year competition

˜ November, 21 August, °˛°˛ 2015

life+style The Weekend Sun 9

The Afrolites Heavy jazz funky jam monster The Afrolites are a six-piece afrobeat funky jazz band or an afrofunk/jazz band depending on how you describe their music.

I found them rehearsing with headphones on, in a small room in Welcome Bay just as the sun set, and managed to navigate the banter and laughter.

The group is made up of Nik Jenkins on bass guitar, Julian Perry on keyboards, Ben Smith on guitar, Damien Cooper on guitar, Fabiano Fava on trumpet and Ian Richards on drums.

“Originally we had a great desire to be an afrobeat or afrofunk band. There was a guy called Fela Kuti from Nigeria and it was a whole style that he created. Him and a drummer called Tony Allen,” says Ian. “They fused jazz, funk and African rhythms to create their own sound.

“You need more people than we have to do that style,” says Nik. “Eventually we moved away from that more towards the electric jazz side of things.”

There are still strong hints of afrofunk in their music along with the groove heavy jazz-funk sound. The conversation rolls around the group as they describe their own style.

“Our vibe has transmuted over the years into a psychedelic jam monster dripping with cinematic fla our,” says Ian. “We have a love of the 70s cinematic themes like the classic TV cop shows that were around. Streets of San Francisco and Dirty Harry. Clint Eastwood is a jazz musician, and liked that element of jazz dissonance to be in his sound tracks. It creates

tension and it’s kind of what happens with our stuff as well.”

“Yeah we have a lot of tension,” quips Nik. Laughter breaks out.

“A tension deficit?” asks en. More laughter.

The group started playing in 2014 with Fabiano joining them about a year ago.

Their next stop is the 2020 Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival, where they say they will be playing in the late afternoons on the Thursday, Saturday and Sunday of the festival at Bloom in the Bay. They’ve been regulars on the festival scene.

“We had a lot of gigs before Covid and they all died out during lockdown including the 2020 Jazz festival.

We played the Garden & Art Festival a few years ago and are really looking forward to it this time around.”

Julian and Fabiano are both self-employed painterdecorators; Ben is a photographer and runs Pikitia, a company that sells postcards and souvenirs; Damien is a self-employed architectural designer; Nik is an occupational therapist working in community mental health for older people at Tauranga Hospital; and Ian works at Music Planet.

At the Garden & Art Festival, The Afrolites plan to play original instrumental music.

“It’s pretty much a groove-based musical journey,” says Ian. The group have three albums on Spotify and Bandcamp.

“We like to get people dancing. Always keen to start a dance party. That’s a lot of fun for us.”

“And we like to tell a story as well, with that cinematic style,” says Ben.

Get your garden ready for the summer heat

Now is a good time to think about preparing your garden for the hot dry months ahead.

Rainfall in the Bay of Plenty is down 30% this year* and river flow levels are low, so every drop of water will count this summer.

Planning for the summer months • Cover your plant beds and the ground around trees with mulch to stop evaporation and keep soil cool.

• Dig a small trench around trees to help retain water.

• Give your garden a good soak every few days rather than a drink every night to help roots grow deeper.

Looking after your garden during summer • Keep your lawn grass longer over summer, so it doesn’t dry as quickly.

• Water during the cooler parts of the day, between 5 and 8am and 7 and 10pm to prevent evaporation.

• Water the highest part of your garden first – excess water will run to the lower lying areas. *Compared to average annual rainfall for the Bay of Plenty.

For more tips to conserve water visit www.tauranga.govt.nz/savingwater

10

November, life+style The Weekend Sun 21˜ August, 2015°˛°˛

Ruud can’t resist Katikati Jizzy and Mike Green have a highly productive food garden in Katikati and ‘The Bugman’ Ruud Kleinpaste can’t wait to explore it.

“We were organising an event for Grow on Katikati.

When Ruud got involved and said he’d be here for the whole day. We decided to make it a Ruud event,” says Anne Billing from Katikati Taiao.

Ruud will be visiting the local kindergarten, primary school and college in Katikati during the day, then taking folk on a garden ramble through Jizzy’s garden and one other high producing food garden, followed by a free evening public meeting.

“The kids at the kindy are very excited about Ruud coming. They have a very productive garden that they’ll be very keen to show him,” says Anne.

Jizzy is the Grow on Katikati coordinator and says the event with Ruud came about as a result of the food security project that has gained momentum in Katikati neighbourhoods where residents are germinating seeds and growing vegetables for themselves.

“Grow on Katikati is a community group that grew out of the lockdown scenario when we realised that Katikati is a bit food-vulnerable during times of natural disasters,” says Jizzy.

“Within a couple of hours of the lockdown being announced you couldn’t buy a vegetable seedling in any of the shops here. The vegetable growing place had a three-day waiting list to deliver vegetables to people.

So we are vulnerable in the sense of if there is a natural disaster, supermarkets apparently only carry three daysworth of food. If your roading systems are disrupted, then you’re really in trouble.”

Jizzy and Mike have been on their quarter-acre property for 16 years, turning it into what Jizzy likes to

Jizzy and Mike Green

‘The Bugman’ Ruud Kleinpaste

call ‘intensive edible landscaping’.

“We have about 80 fruit trees, seven vegetable beds and a herb garden. We probably grow about 80 per cent of our food during the warmer summer months; and about 60 per cent of our food during the winter months comes from the garden as we preserve food during the summer.”

The property also boasts feijoa trees, olive trees, one avocado, a couple of peach trees, a few fig t ees, citrus and persimmon.

“Katikati is a great place to grow. We even grow bananas throughout the year,” says Jizzy.

Anne has organised the tour of Jizzy’s garden with Ruud.

“Ruud knows what to look for and has a trained eye to find little hidey holes for insects,” says izzy.

“Our garden is an organically-maintained garden so lots of insects and birdlife. It’s just the way we like it.”

Katikati Taiao is hosting Ruud ‘The Bugman’ Kleinpaste in Katikati on Friday November 20. A limited number of people will be able to join his high productive food gardens tour which runs from 3pm to 5pm to learn about bugs, pests and diseases. From 6pm until 7.30pm Ruud will speak at the public event at St Paul’s Presbyterian Church about the benefits o growing food at home and ‘How to murder your plants more slowly’.

“Our community is taking back their food resilience,” says Jizzy.

“What we’re doing is encouraging people to grow food in their back yard. With Ruud it’s an opportunity to link up with how insects can be beneficial in our garden. You can grow food in harmony with all these wonderful insects and micro-organisms in your compost and soil. That’s what’s brought Ruud to Katikati.”

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life+style The Weekend Sun 11

A green rose at last

Sally Lyttle - busy growing soil With Otanewainuku as her backdrop, bumblebees humming, and bantams quietly clucking under the pear blossoms, the scene couldn’t be more tranquil. Beneath all this is Sally Lyttle’s secret and most loved garden ingredient – soil.

Dressed in a long fl wing floral d ess and gumboots, hair in a lovely loose chignon, a happy contented smile plays over her lips as she strides out across her garden.

Sally’s gardened all her life, and runs workshops about regenerative gardening and soil protection.

“It’s all about the soil, with the idea that if we look after it, plants grow themselves with much less pest, disease and weed pressure.

There’s more biodiversity and the plants are nutrient dense.”

At Bloom in the Bay Sally will be speaking on simple ideas to help grow soil and increase fertility.

Her ‘Garden Project’ business brings together all her different quirks and strengths.

“Mostly I love to help people design and create their garden, considering how much time they’ve got, how they want to use the land, what kind of plants they’re interested in, and how much they want to be outside.

“The idea is that if we all really loved our backyard, really engaged in it and found

it to be an enriching experience, maybe it could change the world quietly and beautifully.”

Sally trained at Otago Polytech, completing a Diploma in Horticulture and Design and is very knowledgeable on permaculture and organics.

“I’m a hippy gardener but I do all sorts of formal English garden work and come from botanical garden training and organics, and I’m fond of diversity.”

She grows food for the household in her glasshouse and garden. Bumblebees come to the kaka beak which draws them into the property where they then pollinate the broad beans.

“We incorporate crop rotation. If you think about how many onions a family eats in a year - at least an onion a day, so that’s 365 onions.

“Last summer it was all pumpkins, tomatoes and corn. At the end of the season I plant a green crop like mustard and lupins.

Then I chop that down, and cover the beds for the winter. When I pull them back in October they’re good to go.”

She also grows beans and cucumbers, with an orchard of pears and apples. Her husband Leon makes garden structures out of steel which they will also be showing at Bloom in the Bay.

He’s finally done it. After 37 ears of experience and 29 years of breeding, Rob Somerfield has eleased a green rose - ‘Green with Envy’.

Growing to about one metre high, the long stemmed unique lime green roses have about 20 petals per fl wer.

Rob says demand for the new variety has “gone absolutely berserk all around the country”.

The unusual trait with Green with Envy is the length of time the green fl wer lasts, both on the bush and as a cut fl wer.

“The green pigment in it is chlorophyll, the same chemical that gives the green in leaves, so the petals tend to act a bit like leaves and last for a long period of time.”

To finally p oduce the green rose, Rob says that he first c ossed two roses about 30 years ago.

“One of the roses that came out was white and had green tinges to it so I worked on that.”

He sets his rose breeding standards very high.

“After persistence I got there with this one. It’s up to my standards, all the other characteristics are good and the rose lasts for a really long time,” says Rob. Looking back, he recalls how his grandfather had a rose plant beside the

Learning, supporting, creating The Weekend Sun Emerging Artist Award An exciting and new feature at this year’s Bay of Plenty Garden & Art Festival is The Weekend Sun Emerging Artist award.

Earlier in the year, festival director Marc Anderson put the call out for any interested artists to apply.

Thirteen of the 14 emerging artists selected as finalists spent time with a tist Rob McGregor over two development workshops held at Tauranga Racecourse.

These are Sharn Lambert, Anna Price, Sandy Clarke, Trish Coates, Marilyn Muirhead, Vicki Fraser, Sally Ward, Carmen Hutcheson, Vanessa Ryder, Lisa Stowell, Deidre Callaghan, Myra Nelson and Diana Spence.

“They are already good artists, but it just gives us another opportunity to offer a platform so people can gain confidence,” says arc. “And give them a chance to express themselves creatively and learn from professionals like Rob.” “It was really awesome to be involved,” says Anna, who creates large resin beachscapes. “Just to get to go along and listen to Rob talk about his experiences and tell stories about his life as an artist was really cool.

“It was also cool to sit amongst the other artists that were there as well, have a chat, be social with them and be around other likeminded people who are on the same journey wanting to be creative.”

Anna says that she found herself very absorbed in what all the artists were working during the workshop days together, and that there was a feeling of mutual support between them.

“We got to walk around and look at each other’s pieces. Rob would offer advice and then we’d talk about them. It was amazing to be in that experience and to really feed off each other,” says Anna.

“Everyone is so different,” says Rob. “So really it’s just a matter of me offering an opinion which they can take or leave. I make suggestions and give general principles that some will benefit f om.

“To me the most important thing is to paint something that you are not only familiar with but have strong feeling about. You either really like it or hate it, but you have an emotional connection with it.

“I think people should work in a series. Once you’ve done one, start the next. Each one develops a bit differently and you become familiar with it,” says Rob. “It was amazing,” says Vanessa.

“I’ve never actually had an art lesson before. It was eye opening to look at everybody else’s work. Rob was great. He explained things in a way that I could understand and he had really helpful tips.”

“It’s an amazing opportunity to be involved in the festival and it’s great that they are including emerging artists that maybe otherwise wouldn’t get into a garden and give them some experience and talk about what’s involved in the process,” says Anna.

Imogen Munns, a youth emerging artist, enjoyed four art sessions with Jacqui van den Berg who along with Rob have been festival artists.

One of the artists will be awarded ‘The Weekend Sun’s Emerging Artist’ award at the Garden & Art Festival, and all of the finalists will ha e work exhibited at Bloom in the Bay.

Rob McGregor with some of the emerging artists at one of the recent workshops.

cowshed in Motueka when he was about six or seven.

He’s nearly lost track of how many roses he’s bred over nearly 40 years.

“More than 50. I have them in different stages of production. If you decide to put them on the market it takes two years to produce the plant.”

Although he has a diploma in nursery management which helped him learn how to grow plants properly, Rob says the rest is trial and error. He breeds about 15,000 roses a year, selecting out the best until he has one he feels is good enough to graft.

“It takes about ten years to get one onto the market. You’ve got to go through all your seedlings every day and pick out the best.

Next year you’re whittling them down more.”

He knows what roses are best for Bay of Plenty rose lovers.

“Unless you’re going to be one of those old-fashioned gardeners that are out there in the garden every weekend dead-heading and spraying, in our Tauranga conditions it’s got to be a healthy rose.”

Rob will be sharing his knowledge and passion for roses at Bloom in the Bay at the Tauranga Racecourse during the festival.

12

life+style The Weekend Sun 21 August, 2015

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