Esplanade capers
Victoria Esplanade is on the threshold of a new era.
Deep inside the Esplanade’s Peter Black conservatory, there’s a locked, private door. It leads out into a backyard where, until last week, the original 1941 Begonia House stood, along with worksheds and storage buildings.
These remnants of the past have now been swept away – soon to be replaced with something as splendid, in its own way, as begonia house was to Palmerstonians 76 years ago.
The Wildbase Recovery Centre, unique in New Zealand, will be built on and around part of the cleared space.
It will be both a place to rehabilitate and treat ill or injured native birds before they’re returned to the wild and a permanent and inflight aviary complex. Visitors will be able to see the birds being treated and recovering, close up and for free.
In a collaboration with major sponsor Central Energy Trust, Wildbase Recovery is to be built and owned by the city council and managed by Massey University’s veterinary school.
Somehow, it’s easy to imagine that if longtime Esplanade curator and conservatory namesake Peter Black were still alive, he would heartily approve.
An innovator and admirer of New Zealand’s natural beauty and wildlife, he spent about 35 years transforming not just the Esplanade, but The Square and the parks and streets of Palmerston North with carefully-planned flowering bushes, greenery and trees.
Black first garnered notice here in 1908, following a turbulent time, both horticulturally and politically.
The mayor Richard Essex was at odds with his borough councillors and with the fledgling Esplanade’s well-respected curator, William Smith. Smith and Essex seemed unable to agree on anything. After one too many personality clashes, Smith left for New Plymouth.
When the next local election rolled around, the popular James Alfred Nash became mayor and Black was appointed new curator of reserves. Things settled down.
Black, then aged 35, was highly qualified. He had studied horticulture at Edinburgh University under Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour, the world’s leading systemic botanist.
Next, he travelled to India to work for the Indian government. When his health deteriorated, he left to work in the sugarcane industry in Australia and then went on to a rubber plantation in Samoa.
Settling finally in New Zealand, Black worked in various nurseries and gardens around Wellington until his Palmerston North appointment.
Within months, he had redesigned The Square, with the council’s approval. His plan involved a rose garden and four paths radiating out from the Te Awe Awe statue; seats under the plane trees; shelter shrubs and future flower beds; and a holly hedge around two sides. Black also joined the Philosophical Society and went on tramping trips to scenic areas of the country.
Over the years Back remodelled the Esplanade, designed the Awatapu golf links and numerous bowling greens throughout the district, and organised tree planting along city streets. He gave lectures on horticulture at the then Massey College and was an examiner for the New Zealand Institute of Horticulture.
In early 1939, he and a committee decided to build a begonia hothouse – a Winter Garden – to mark the approaching New Zealand centenary. The Government had promised a centennial subsidy to all towns that created a memorial, however, the outbreak of World War II delayed everything.
In 1941, the plan was back on track. The Begonia Hothouse opened near the Lions-donated children’s paddling pool. Workshops, a propagation glasshouse and a lathe house – a structure to get tender plants ready for the outside – were also added on the site.
Eventually, Black retired to Levin with his wife Sarah, and died in 1950. Just a year later, the begonia house disappeared from public view, dwarfed by a large, brand-new conservatory named in Black’s honour.
The conservatory has undergone refurbishments, a new entryway and re-roofing since then. Today’s modern workshops and storage sheds are now at Manawaroa St, but this corner of the Esplanade – including the aviary – inspires visitors and workers alike.
Conservatory gardener Brian Adam has been an Esplanade employee for 30 years, first nursing along the begonias and cyclamen, and now looking after more exotic specimens, such as cacao and coffee bean plants, banana trees, sugarcane and orchids, ‘‘my particular favourite’’, he says.
He also reveals a secret. Not every bit of the 1941 complex has vanished.
The propagating glasshouse, built at the same time as the begonia display house, with a shed in between the two, still stands and ‘‘will probably be kept as a propagation house’’, Adam says.
Over the way, aviary curator Peter Russell says he’s been ‘‘the bird man’’ since 1978, like his father George before him. In 1955, George Russell helped draw up plans for the then brand new aviaries and built up its stock of bird species. When he retired, Peter took over.
The younger Russell is now looking forward to the special aviaries that are to come, and the influx of both new wildlife and new visitors.
‘‘People are fascinated by the birds,’’ he says, as a green Antipodes Islands parakeet snuggles up to him. Russell explains that this type of bird doesn’t nest in trees, but in ground burrows, which makes them vulnerable to predators.
Predators are the bane of native wildlife – which is where this story comes right back to Wildbase Recovery.
It’s ‘‘watch this space’’ time at the Esplanade.