TRIP REPORT : Workbee at Dench’s garden

 Saturday 15 May 2004 :   Workbee at Arnold and Ruth Dench’s garden

BotSoccers at work in Arnold and Ruth Dench’s garden. Photo: Barbara Mitcalfe.

It was a privilege to be invited to help in this specialised garden, a hands and knees job if ever there were one, among treasures requiring great care.   I spent at least an hour on one tiny patch of Parahebe canescens infested with oxalis, and as I worked on it I recalled seeing the plant in the wild, smothered with delicate mauve flowers near the sandy shore of Lake Pukaki.

Participants:   Margaret Aitken, Barbara Clark, Arnold and Ruth Dench, Barry Dent, Sue Freitag, Dave Holey, Chris Horne, Barbara Mitcalfe (scribe), Merrin Pearce, Gordon Purdie, Robyn Smith, Louise Taylor, Julia White (leader).