Change in the landscape
Tony Milne from Rough Milne Mitchell shares his love of wildflowers in public spaces and his thoughts on a new green spine for the Ōtākaro Avon River.
Spending a day in Wa¯naka this week reminded me of how great the Otago hinterland does seasonality. Autumnal change is omnipresent. Back in O¯tautahi Christchurch, and running through Hagley Park, a meadow of wildflowers has sprung within the north-eastern corner of Christchurch’s green lungs. A sign indicates a trial undertaken by the Council. I am sure some of our Christchurch folk would disapprove. Unkempt, they may mutter.
On seeing this trial, I did smile. Apparently, I need to smile more. A few years back, when Christchurch still had the Ellerslie Garden Show, which was a slight misnomer, we were approached by the Canterbury Horticulture Society to design a garden for them. ‘Love in the Garden’ we called it, and while it caught the imagination and even inspired some, the majority couldn’t fathom it.
Essentially, we filled our garden with a mix of wildflowers with some sculptural metal stamen (metaphorically) projecting above a tangled mess of foliage and flowers, upon which butterflies and bees danced. Each metal stamen was filled with things like rolled oats, torches, and baked beans, among other things. A nod to the role the anther, the pollen-producing part of the stamen, plays in the life of plants and life in immediately post-earthquake Christchurch.
The Horticulture Society had really let itself down, came the muttering. How dare they. Oh, for the familiarity of a clipped Buxus, a jolly good laurel and the comforting fragrance of a Margaret Merril.
Yes, I admit the ratio of foliage to flower cover was not exactly as imagined. Putting the stamen to one side, it is nice to now see wildflowers en-masse be trialled by the Council within Hagley Park. I like this approach. Several others have used it to colour broken and empty sites within Christchurch over the last few years. Over the last decade or so, the inspiring Dutch garden designer, Piet Oudolf, has also been at the forefront of the use of meadows within public spaces. I’ll watch with interest.
Regarding change in the landscape, as part of a larger team, we have recently submitted a bid to be on the design panel that the Council is setting up for the design and delivery of the O¯ta¯karo Avon River Corridor. This is a fantastic opportunity to participate in a generational project for O¯tautahi Christchurch and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Both tell a story, whether it be a new green spine that embraces the O¯ta¯karo Avon River or a patch of wildflowers. We can write the next chapter of the story for O¯tautahi by recognising and understanding the past chapters. Not an exclusive story, and that is the power of landscape.
03 366 3268 | rmmla.co.nz
