What an amazing day we had. We met Annie (raranga whanau) at the gate and from the moment we walked down the path and found ourselves surrounded with the New Zealand native collection, it was like being in harakeke heaven. We signed into the visitors' book, putting our names directly below Maureen Lander - a remarkable personality in the weaving world. What a privilege to be introduced to her and to listen to her talk to us about her latest installation at Te Papa. Kerri Gillbanks (in charge of natives and a flax weaver herself) is a real treasure - so knowledgeable about each different variety of harakeke and so willing to share her knowledge with us. The purpose of the day was to clean up the harakeke plants, with weavers from the greater Auckland area being invited. In all truthfulness we did not do a lot of cleaning up, being so overwhelmed with talking, looking and learning. I came away with fans of nine different varieties to plant (about 30 in total) - with two varieties from the Buckley Fyers collection and the rest from the renowned Rene Orchiston collection, as well as a bundle of freshley harvested harakeke.
Local landscaper Jude Calder has designed the layout of the flax garden for us as the first stage of our landscaping plan. We have also purchased muka flax fans from Mita Watene at Kopu. Really interesting story because it turns out that he and Dad worked together for years at Carrington Building Company and Dad actually drew the plans for his home. Along with the Kopu flax we have also added a fan from the beautiful flax I have found on Robinson Road, (courtesy of Isabel, the quilter) and some ti kouka (cabbage trees). Hopefully they will all prosper and in a couple of years will be ready for harvesting. 