By Rhonda Bartle
The Goodson Guerrillas: From left Barbara Patterson, Margaret Holmes, Margaret Parker and Helen Carrodus. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1067.
Four gardening grannies
Margaret Holmes, Margaret Parker, Helen Carrodus and Barbara Patterson are known as Hāwera's Garden Guerrillas. They even get mail addressed to them as that.
Aged from 'not quite old enough for the pension' to a ripe old 83, they are as creative in their thinking as they are in their gardening.
Together they have knocked a long-neglected piece of Hāwera swamp into the gorgeous Goodson Dell.
It's taken a lot of time, commitment and gardening. Often one of them will stop by for a touch of weeding - and leave three hours later.
"We're waging war on cherry seedlings at the moment," Margaret Holmes says as we enter the dell from the High Street entrance, with Barbara Patterson leading the way.
A common pose: Margaret Parker stops to pull a weed. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1075.
A war on weeds
Everyone stops in their tracks to obediently yank at nasty green intruders from the cracks in the pavement.
All that can be seen for a while is bent backs. "You walked past a thistle!" someone scolds.
As the eldest, Barbara is considered the matriarch of the group, while Margaret Holmes is perhaps the most specialist gardener amongst them, having judged floral art around the world for more than 30 years.
But they all share a common interest, the Goodson Dell, and soon the four gardening grannies are making their way down a concrete path into a short gulley, where at the bottom lies a narrow, meandering stream.
"We walked through here for years and years and you wouldn't have known that the water was here," Helen Carrodus says.
"Yes," Margaret Parker agrees. "Now everyone knows Goodson Dell."
Original glory: The Goodson homestead two doors over. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1073.
Farmer in the Dell
And that's how this story begins. All four of these impressive gardeners belong to the Hāwera Women's' Club walking group.
Two years ago during a regular ramble, they began to lament the state of the Goodson Dell.
The land, which had once belonged to the Goodson family, whose handsome homestead now stands two houses away, once stood alone on the Goodson farm.
By damming a small spring flowing from an adjacent property, the family had turned a trickle of water into a fine swimming hole.
On each bank they'd laid tidy concrete steps. A bridge stretched over the water. Many Hāwera children had spent sunny afternoons beneath it, learning how to swim and paddling round in boats.
Specimen trees, which are now more than 100 years old, still grow where they were planted.
But over the years, the land was divided and sold, and the swimming hole and the garden around them fell into wrack and ruin until the four walking friends decided to do something about it.
Dappled light falls on the old concrete stairs, which Barbara Patterson has been known to sweep with a hearth brush. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS12006_1077.
Who will adopt the dell?
"The path was always here," Barbara says, "and we used to go for walks every Friday. Basically, we're nosy parkers.
"We had a little route that included this dell. But you couldn't get around it all. It was a bush scramble rather than a pleasant walk."
Helen nods. "I came from Auckland, and just about every day, I looked at that. It was sad. Everyone walked through it and it amazed me to see something so neglected."
They decided to approach various service clubs to see if they wanted to tidy it up. Barbara grabbed her pen.
"I wrote to Altrusa and told them about it, and asked them but they said no. I mentioned it to someone in the Lions but it wasn't what they wanted, either."
A surprise move
So at the next walking group annual general meeting they decided to write to the South Taranaki District Council and ask them to clean it up.
In a surprise move, John Sargeant of the council came back to them. "How about you adopt it and care for it yourselves?"
When they all said yes, John sent in a council team to spray and the gardeners got cracking, carting off 'bags and bags' of rubbish and many old tyres.
Dozens of golf balls rolled out of the undergrowth.
"I found my forte in life," Barbara laughs. "Bushwhacking."
Soon Margaret Parker's partner, Colin Washer, came on board, digging out the mucky stream and lining the banks with smooth river rocks.
The women are unanimous in their praise of his unflinching support.
"He has an eye for where things should go," Helen says. "And he did all the donkey work."
The floral bunch: The Garden Guerrillas pose, as always, with weeds in their hands beneath an ancient Magnolia. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1079.
The real fun begins
Many of the original trees still stand, tall and magnificent.
A rimu sways alongside a century old magnolia, which spreads wide arms towards the water. A single Norfolk Pine graces the southern boundary.
Once the planting began, the idea was to find plants particularly suited to the site, and these were gathered from wide and varied sources.
"Margaret Parker has a gem of partner and so lot of stuff finds its way down here," the other Margaret says.
"We've got clivia from New Plymouth, another heap from Hāwera and the council donated the rhodos."
The good oil on the Goodson
Today, the Goodson Dell has been utterly transformed, from a soggy piece of watery wasteland to a peaceful sanctuary where tui and grey warblers call.
While the wind whistles over the gully, all below is quiet, calm and clean.
Gone is the marauding Wandering Jew, and the multitude of broken tree trunks and branches.
Gone are the piles of other gardeners' clippings.
Instead, hostas, violets, and primulas riot on the banks beneath new cypresses and kowhais.
Powder lilies grow in hollows, with their 'delicate scent - the perfume is heavenly.'
Blue ajuga flowers jostle like soldiers in the shade.
Look up! Helen Carrodus, Barbara Patterson and Margaret Parker with Margaret Holmes in the background. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1076.
Floral facts
"Did you know?" Helen says, pointing to a bed of apricot-coloured clivias, "that these were named after a Doctor Clivia?
"Or that orange was once a no-no colour in the garden? People didn't wear orange or even use it in furnishings until the 1970s."
"Remember that big tree that made everything dark?" someone says in a conspiratorial whisper, as they jab a finger towards a fresh stump.
"Someone cut it down," comes another voice, full of feigned innocence.
"We have no idea who, but look, now we've got a sunny park bench and a green fence!"
A Goodson spot to stop: The dell sports a new park seat: Image Puke Ariki TS2006_1071.
What about Naumau Park?
The new council-supplied fence has been erected very recently.
The gardening girls lean over the railings to chew the fat and admire their efforts below.
The small streams flows gently towards town. "Look how clean the water is," they all say.
Of course, they know Goodson Dell intimately now, having spent hour after hour there, and they know John Sergeant quite well, too.
When they meet to talk about their project, it's over a cup of tea at a local garden centre café.
"You've done such a good job," John once joked, "How about you take on Naumai Park?"
"We thought that was pushing it!" They all laugh.
On the fringe
With the 2006 Rhododendron Festival just over the horizon, and the Goodson Dell an entry into the rebel Fringe Garden Festival, the Garden Guerrillas are set to become world famous in Hāwera.
An article that appeared in the Hāwera Star showcased them under an Ageing with Attitude headline.
"Ageing positively," says Margaret Parker in a mock Queen Victoria accent.
"I'm tired of talking about positively ageing attitudes," says Barbara, "I've always been stroppy."
Calendar Girls
They suddenly seem less guerrilla-like and much more like south Taranaki's answer to the Calendar Girls - a group of elderly ladies who took their clothes off for the camera.
When told this, they snort with derision. "Yes, I can just see you, Barbara, with your pitchfork and strategically placed gloves."
Down in dell, the giggles echo. "So, who's the patron saint of gardeners?" someone asks.
"St Barbara, probably," a wit throws back, as the Garden Guerrillas reluctantly begin their trudge up the path to the street.
It takes an extraordinary length of time to get back up to the pavement. Knees are bending and busy hands are picking, plucking, weeding.
A Goodson bunch: The four walking friends stop for a moment on the pathway. Image Puke Ariki Collection TS2006_1072.