Glorious gardens feature in trail to help raise the roof

• Author: Paul Williams
• Published date: 20 January 2023
• Publication title: Horowhenua Chronicle

Ōhau couple Sharon and Bruce Batten’s stunning labour of love, and a garden that Catherine Marshall calls “The Wild Wood”, will feature among the eight gardens making up the first-ever Ōhau Hall Garden Trail next weekend

All funds raised will go towards replacing the roof at the Ōhau Hall. More than 100 tickets to the garden trail have been sold already.

Ōhau Hall Society Committee secretary Pauline May said the idea for the garden trail was conceived out of a desire to raise funds to replacing the hall’s ageing roof, with a new roof needed and expected to cost more than $60,000.

In addition to applications for various grants, the committee needed to proactive in raising funds themselves, hence the idea for the garden trail.

“A little raffle is just not going to cut it,” she said.

The Batten’s didn’t hesitate to open their garden gate to help. Bruce Batten said Ōhau Hall was an important facility for Ōhau and for the wider community.

“Ōhau is a small but growing community and there are few focal points in the village beyond the hall itself,” he said.

“We are only too happy to help.”

The Batten’s garden rose from a bare section six years ago on half a hectare to become a thriving New Wave Perennial garden in the style of renown Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, a mixture of decorative grasses and denser broad-leafed evergreens along with seasonal perennials like daffodils, alliums and rudbeckia.

Now, after countless hours spent in the garden with their sleeves rolled up, their passion had reached point where it had attracted the interest of a national magazine.

As had Catherine Marshall’s garden, and she was also only too happy to support the community initiative, too.

The Marshall garden was a chance for her to indulge in a life-long passion for plants and trees, the 2.4ha property...