Bursting into life

SUPPLIEd

Green fingers: Redwoodtown gardener Colleen Agnew has a thriving flower and vegetable garden in her small suburban plot

SUPPLIED

Pretty pets: Petunias make a bright splash of colour around the bird bath on the front lawn

Relevant offers

Home and Garden

Weekend garden ramble Bit of Africa in Rapaura The shed out west Defying expectations A sweet nutcracker The art of Christmas Hints for Christmas decorating Win Xanthe White Organic Vegetable Gardening Flavour of the sea Life and times of a restaurant legend

A thriving Redwoodtown garden is proof that good things come in small packages.

If you're looking for Colleen Agnew, then try her garden. Chances are she's somewhere in it. Colleen, who moved into her Redwoodtown flat nine years ago, is a keen gardener; enjoying growing both flowers and vegetables.

She inherited some garden when she moved into the flat but in the last few years has extended that to include a highly productive vegetable patch, her own small orchard and colourful trees, shrubs and flowers to provide colour all year round.

She's always been a gardener; growing up post-war it was a necessity, she said.

"After the war Dad got a rehab farm. As kids, if you didn't have a calf or a lamb at home then you had a vege garden at school."

Decades later, although the garden site has long since changed, Colleen is still enjoying the fruits of her labour in her own vege garden. Tightly packed rows of potatoes, corn and beets mingle with tomatoes, caulis and capsicums while along the eastern boundary fruit trees also produce an abundant crop.

"The vegetable garden is the most important one," she said. "Occasionally I have to buy some veges but not often. I freeze any surplus or give it away."

While the vegetable patch is meticulously planned and tended. Colleen's flower gardens are a bit more haphazard.

"I enjoy the flower garden but it's not a planned garden; it just happens," she said. Sometimes her family helps with big projects such as archways and paving, but for the most part Colleen does all the gardening herself. An avid member of the local rock and mineral club, Colleen often finds a home for her stone-like treasures somewhere in the garden. She applies the same philosophy to cuttings she acquires.

Although not in the garden every day, she often goes out into it for five minutes and heads inside an hour later. Time just flies.

Colleen makes her own compost and also uses blood and bone and sheep manure pellets to get the best from the garden. Favourite plants and flowers include rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias.

"It's an easy-care garden," she grinned. "Lots of shrubs and ground cover.

"A garden shouldn't be hard work; it should be pleasure and that's what mine is."

- The Marlborough Express

Newest First

Oldest First