Bay of Plenty
Sandra Simpson looks at how the main road to Castlecliff Beach got a facelift.
Back then, trains and trams carried day trippers from the city to the black sands and swells of the Tasman Sea. A campground opened, baches were built, and in 1911, a Life Saving Club was formed.
These days, outside the peak of summer, Castlecliff is the epitome of a sleepy, seaside suburb which, paradoxically, has led to a pioneering garden project.
“The council had neglected the suburb for a long time,” says community group Progress Castlecliff member Ivan Vostinar, “so when a chunk of money was finally allocated we decided to have community meetings for input on how to spend it.”
The clear choice was to beautify Rangiora Street, the main street leading to the beach.
“The council did a concept design and the artist sketched an aloe leaf as a motif – he planted the seed with me that we needed to have something that in 20 years, or 100 years, could look iconic,” Ivan explains.
Ivan, who has been a full-time artist since the age of 23, moved to Whanganui in 2012 where – thanks to making all the pottery for The Hobbit films – he was able to buy a building two blocks from Castlecliff Beach, turning it into premises for a studio and gallery as well as a home shared with his partner Simone Higgie and their two-year-old daughter Zoe.
“I very naively thought I would grow purely edibles,” he says of his efforts in his own garden behind the building, “but quickly realised I had sand for soil and was up against salt-laden winds.
The fruit trees got scorched until I could get native hedging up.”
Inspired by Paloma Gardens near Whanganui, Ivan’s next garden was much hardier. “I was moved to tears on my first visit to Paloma,” he recalls. “I’ve been an artist for a long time and was awed by what was possible – and I fell in love with agaves and aloes.”
He decided to turn the corner site at one end of his building – half his land, half the council’s – into an unfenced garden, complete with brick pathway leading through for everyone to enjoy. Here are masses of succulents, cacti and other plants suited to the conditions, including pride of Madeira ( Echium
candicans). A prickly pear has been trained as a standard.
Ivan has also planted his own land on the other side of the building frontage to add further colour.
To plant up Rangiora Street, he turned to Paloma Garden’s plantsman – and Simone’s father – Clive Higgie.
Clive’s advice was to use native n¯ikau palms, dragon tree ( Dracaena draco) and Aloe bainesii as statements. “The nikau¯ was a complete gamble,” Ivan recalls. “We’re usually very dry in summer but they all survived and we knew people would love them.”
The only requirement from the Whanganui District Council is – not surprisingly – no dangerous spiky plants.
The project has unfolded at the rate of a block a year, with the council providing soil. “The street plants grow three times as fast as the ones I put in sand in the corner garden.”
Ivan applauds the council for being open to a community-led project. There has only been one serious theft of plants and not all the “hooning” has stopped but, overall, Ivan says the goodwill and respect for the gardens have been “outstanding” and includes gifts of plants and even some cash donations.
“The plants look good in summer but really come into their own in winter when the aloes are in flower and the nectar-eating birds arrive.”
At the same time as the project started, sea theme murals by Whanganui artist Dan Mills went on to some streetfacing walls and locals bought a block of buildings, one of which is now a popular cafe. A library opened two years ago, its lawn featuring Cliffy Mokonui, a dinosaur made by another resident artist, Jack Marsden-Mayer, from driftwood collected on Castlecliff Beach, plus more gardens.
It seems the tide may be turning for Castlecliff. ✤