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A garden of colour and joy
The sight of blue and yellow viola and pansies fluttering in the spring breeze brings joy to the heart and a smile to the face of 81-year-old tenant Heather Smith.
On moving to her pensioner unit in Anglesea Street, Freemans Bay three months ago, Heather joked with her tenancy manager that she would be entering the garden awards.
Heather relocated from her former unit for mobility and access reasons. Within a few months she had established a garden in front of her unit.
Heather devised an innovative way of gardening because kneeling on the ground was impossible.
She bought a child-size spade and rake which she uses to garden as well as provide support.
While Heather can garden for several hours in the morning, she finds it painful to sit in the afternoon.
“It has been a great joy for me to have a garden again,” says Heather, who left school at 14 to start work as a florist during the depression.
She later became a violin teacher until neck and arm injuries forced the end of her teaching career.
Painting became her next artistic outlet as she attended lessons and groups. The paintings around the walls of her flat are a reminder of this 20 year interest.
“Something has always come along to fill a gap. Gardening is my artistic outlet now,” says Heather.
Creating a garden has had an extra bonus for Heather - she has formed a close bond with another Anglesea Street resident, Mrs Anwari Dean, herself a winner in the previous Housing New Zealand Garden Awards.
The two can be found heads together conferring about plants, the soil and other such gardening topics. Heather has also found her garden has proved a conversation-starter enabling her to meet other residents in the complex.
Gardening has become Heather Smith's new canvas for her creative outlet.
