A sprightly 74-year-old, who has helped make Tauranga a haven for butterflies, has been named the NZ Gardener 2010 Bay of Plenty Gardener of the Year.
Mary Parkinson, a former florist and accomplished artist, is a volunteer at Te Puna Quarry Park. As well as visiting twice a week to help
in the gardens, she's created a butterfly garden and a butterfly house at the park to help protect caterpillars from predatory insects.
Swan plants and nectar-rich flowers are now abundant and, thanks to Ms Parkinson, the quarry has been officially acknowledged as a butterfly habitat that regularly attracts carloads of visitors.
Ms Parkinson is one of 15 regional finalists announced today in NZ Gardener magazine's 2010 Gardener of the Year competition.
"Mary says butterflies are flowers that fly," NZ Gardener editor Jo McCarroll said.
"She told us she often goes out on mercy missions, to transport buckets full of monarch butterfly caterpillars from areas where there's nothing to eat, to places where there's plenty of food for them. The park is now full of monarchs and admirals in summer, thanks in no small part to what she's done."
Ms Parkinson is one of the most devoted volunteers at the Te Puna Quarry Park, visiting twice a week since it opened 13 years ago to plant and tend orchids, shift rocks and grub gorse. She has won $1000 worth of gardening products and is now in the running for the supreme prize: $5000 worth of vouchers to spend at Mitre 10 and a luxury trip for two to the 2011 Ellerslie Flower Show.
The 2010 regional winners are: Barry Mills, Northland; Janet Luke, Hawke's Bay; Graham Burtenshaw, Marlborough; Joe Iosefo, Auckland; Trish Smart, Manawatu and Wanganui; Barbara Forrest, West Coast; Alwyn Seeley, Waikato; Harriet Rei, Taranaki; Alan Jones, Canterbury; Mary Parkinson, Bay of Plenty; Joy Drake, Wellington; Les Cleveland, Otago; Margaret Savage, Gisborne; Robyn Jones, Nelson; Alan and Marilyn Clark, Southland.
The 15 regional winners - and official voting form - feature in the October issue of NZ Gardener. For full entry details, see www.nzgardener.co.nz.
