Otari's garden of native plants

Forest and Bird, Issue 292, 1 May 1999, Page 28

Otari's garden of native plants

KATHY OMBLER

— Kathy Ombler

A major bequest will enhance Wellington's collection of native plants,

reports

Botanic Garden in the Wellington suburb of Wilton. Underfoot, the track is littered with tawa drupes; overhead three playful kereru stall high above the green canopy then swoop from sight into the forest-filled gully. Tui song resounds, and the supervisor, Anita Benbrook, talks animatedly of discovering a nesting kereru in a nearby matipo tree. It is the first she has seen actually breeding here in 11 years of working in the gardens. The forest is now showing healthy recovery signs after intensive possum-poi-soning programmes in recent years. Yet, there’s more excitement at Otari: a bequest of $1.3 million dollars has ‘kick started’ a major redevelopment plan for the 80-hectare reserve. On the plans are a new alpine garden, a revamped visitor centre, enlarged car park and a tree-top walkway through the forest canopy. Otari is touted as New Zealand’s major collection of native plants in a botanic garden — the legacy of an earlier association with the eminent New Zealand botanist, Dr Leonard Cockayne. Otari’s five-hectare stand of remnant podocarp/hardwood forest is also regarded as the most significant mature forest remaining on the Wellington peninsula. The reserve’s forest walks, gardens and picnic areas, just a few minutes from downtown Wellington, are enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year. Wellington City Council, which administers Otari, has committed a further $300,000 to the ‘windfall’ from the Charles Plimmer Bequest, to help fund redevelopment, due for completion in October. Resource consents for the work were granted late last year. The most spectacular development will be a 75-metre-long, tree-top walkway, which is being built to span a section of Otari’s forest-filled gully and link two sections of the gardens. At its highest point the bridge will be 18 metres above ground — creating opportunities for ‘bird’s-eye’ viewing into the canopy tops. A new and enlarged alpine garden is another major part of Otari’s redevelopment. That this reserve — in a shady gully in the middle of Wellington’s suburbia — has an area devoted to the hardy little plants normally found growing high above bushline, is testament to the vision of Leonard Cockayne. I is a sunny afternoon at Otari Native

In 1927 Cockayne initiated a plan which aimed for the conservation of primeval New Zealand, and for education to encourage the use of native plants in private gardens. Cockayne’s specific aims were to establish a collection of all New Zealand’s native plant species, to be arranged as far as possible in their families, and to re-cre-ate several ecosystems representative of different areas of New Zealand — hence the development of an alpine garden. This was initially planted in 1931 and, in 1968, was shifted to its present site beside the Otari’s carpark. The new garden will be on the same site, but slightly enlarged to an area of some 1500 square metres. ‘We plan to establish 1500 alpine plants, that were all grown here on site from seed and cutting, plus another 1000 subalpine plants that will merge into the alpines. Naturally we will lose some of these but we will keep lots of spares in the nursery, says Anita Benbrook. ‘Everything will all be planted in ecological groupings; there will be tussock grassland, a bog with appropriately associated plants, and a scree area. We are also going to try some subantarctic plants. (Staff have been south on a collecting trip, with the Department of Conservation.) Growing alpine plants — and other species from throughout New Zealand — in Wellington conditions, is not a huge issue, according to Anita Benbrook. ‘Wellington is well suited for growing temperate plants right through to quite cool plants, she says. ‘By siting the plants well, and manipulating their growing conditions, you can grow a greater range. Alpine plants face south, for example, and the garden is elevated to get good slopes. The more the degree of slope the further "south" you go. The same applies for growing northern plants — by siting them on a north-facing slope you can develop a micro-climate that’s really hot. (In this way, a small kauri grove has become established at Otari from plantings in the 1930s.) In other developments, Otari’s visitor centre will now include a bigger display area, bigger classroom, improved staff facilities and a huge deck leading to the canopy walkway. Major improvements will also be made to the carpark and entranceways and a new irrigation system installed.

The = botanic gardens to curator t for Wellington says City, Mike Oates, says there was a need to upgrade Otari. "This whole concept was finalized in the management plan in 1996. Otari is a unique attraction of national importance and we felt a need to bring it into the 1990s. That the council is investing so heavily in Otari is, according to Oates, a political decision. ‘The council recently completed a review of its services and determined that the provision of parks and open spaces was deemed to be a core service, because there wasn’t any other provider. The current developments also fit with the council’s strategic plan for landscape, ecosystems, natural heritage and recreation. With these developments underway, further funding is being sought for new interpretative material and signage. We recognize interpretation is one of the crucial parts of the experience here and our labelling needs improvement; says Mike Oates, referring in particular to labels on the large

number of cultivars growing at Otari. "These are something of a hangover from plant fashions of the 1960s, he says. "The mish-mash of tracks that zig zag throughout Otari are also urgently in need of better signage: Michael Harte, spokesperson for Forest and Bird’s Wellington branch, is delighted with the Otari developments. ‘Anything that gives Otari a higher profile is good. The higher the profile, the easier it will be to resist

future funding cuts, he says.

KATHY OMBLER is a Wellingtonbased freelance writer with an active interest in conservation and recreation. She has written a number of tramping guidebooks including the regional series of AA Leisure Walks.