This April, long-time Greenhithe resident Rosemary Platt gifted her 14-acre property on Kyle Road, with a CV of over $10 million, to become a new regional park. It will be managed by Auckland Botanic Gardens and is hoped to become a botanic garden for the North Shore.
Many of us will remember the Platt name from their nursery business, Platt’s Native Nursery, which operated on Albany Highway between 1974 and 1995 and was run by Rosemary and her husband, Graeme, who passed away in 2021.
We were grateful to have the opportunity to speak with Jack Hobbs, curator manager of the Auckland Botanic Gardens, and friend of the Platt family, about the significance of this gift.
What can you tell us about Graeme Platt?
Graeme was “a passionate, charismatic man who did more than anyone else to influence how New Zealanders feel about, and how they use, native plants,” says Jack. Platt’s Nursery was the first and largest nursery of its kind in New Zealand to focus on native plants.
“Graeme had a reputation as a botanical visionary. He ruffled feathers in the botanical world, but the positive things he achieved were monumental,” says Jack.
Graeme advocated for native plants with parks, garden centres, and consumers throughout New Zealand and made hardier versions of native plants available for purchase so that they would grow more successfully.
An example of his conservation focus and his inventiveness was his work with potting mix. "Graeme strongly believed that there had to be an alternative to using peat as a planting medium." (Peat is unsustainable due to its slow regeneration rate and the environmental damage caused by its extraction.)
“Graeme experimented with pine bark as an alternative, although people at the time scoffed at the idea. And of course, today, the main ingredient of potting mix is pine bark. Graeme found a workable process, started using the product successfully, and eventually everyone else followed.”
But perhaps the most lasting legacy of Graeme Platt’s vision and efforts will be his arboretum.
What is an arboretum?
An arboretum is a living collection of trees and woody plants. The Platt Arboretum contains more than 1,000 specimens collected and cultivated by Graeme.
In fact, Jack says, “The Platt property has the potential to be the greatest arboretum in the country due to the extreme significance of the trees.”
A massive one-third of the trees in the arboretum are endangered. Thirteen of the exotic trees are on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and threatened with extinction in the wild. Of the native trees, another twelve are threatened species.
Graeme had a love for trees of all kinds but his greatest passion was for the Araucariaceae, which is the family of trees that includes kauri. Araucariaceae are a very primitive family of trees originally from the countries of Gondwana which have outlived dinosaurs.
There is a fascinating selection of Araucariaceae in this new regional park, even a group that Graeme propagated from the seeds of the mighty Tane Mahuta in Waipoua Forest. There are other exotic specimens of the species, such as the Queensland kauri and the bunya pine. Graeme went to many different countries to source appropriate seeds to bring back to New Zealand, both Araucariaceae and others, for his arboretum as well as for his nursery.
Many trees in the arboretum are more than environmentally significant; they are also taonga species to local iwi who will also have a role to ensure the kaitiakitanga (guardianship and protection) of these species and the whenua.
What will a visitor to the regional park see?
The arboretum is thematically focused already, in a similar way to the groupings in Auckland Botanic Gardens.
Jack explains that Graeme planted the trees in collections with an eye to the impact on visitors. “There is open space in between the groups of trees. People can stand back and appreciate their beauty and size as well as view them up close.”
However, the property will also provide valuable space for North Shore residents to relax and reconnect with nature.
“It’s a magical property in its own right. It has a central pond that drains down to a small stream. When you’re there, you feel like you’re in the wilderness. Even though the motorway isn’t far away, you can’t hear the traffic noise. Graeme has planted the trees with such a well-thought-out design that you can’t even see the housing on three sides of the property.”
The house and shed on the property also serve an educational purpose. Graeme was opposed to the felling of native trees to provide timber for house building, so he researched sustainable exotic trees available as alternatives. He used around 19 different types of exotic timbers in the house and over a dozen in the shed. These will be identified with signage.
How important can a small park be?
Although at 14 acres, this park will be about 10% of the size of the Auckland Botanic Gardens, Jack reminds us that some of the best botanic gardens in the world are only around 5 acres, such as Chelsea Physic in London and Oxford Botanic in Oxford.
“Smaller-sized botanical gardens are well-planned and just packed with interesting things”.
The vision for the future of this regional park will include conservation of the Arboretum, with the potential to add to the collection with further native and exotic species. Auckland Botanic Gardens will look after the trees and plants with their skilled horticulturists and arborists to ensure they continue to thrive. They still face hazards in the environment, such as the kauri dieback disease, and suitable precautions will be taken to ensure their safety. One exciting prospect - potentially in the future, this arboretum could be a source to send seeds of extinct trees back to their homelands to be regenerated there!
When will it open to the public?
There are three stages of the regional park development, as Jack sees it. In this early stage, while the park is unable to be accessed by the public, conservation work will continue, and amenities like a car and toilets, and signage will be built. A volunteer programme will also begin as the site starts to perform conservation work as an adjunct to the Auckland Botanic Gardens. Auckland Botanic Gardens has always been a little out of reach for us, but now North Shore volunteer gardeners can become involved in growing specimens from threatened species. Auckland Botanic Gardens will place a call-out for volunteers closer to the time.
In stage two, when the park opens to the public (in approximately 2028), it will be able to host events and act as an educational resource to allow visitors, such as schools, to learn directly about species, ecosystems and conservation in a way that’s difficult to achieve in a traditional classroom. Then there is the potential for stage three - the park could become a botanical garden in the future. Jack explains that work would need to be done to catalogue the existing plants, then new plantings could be introduced into some of the open spaces on themes that resonate with the North Shore community – eg, herbs and edibles. Such collections might inspire us about what we could plant and care for on our own properties!
Let’s not forget Rosemary
While so much of the talk of this donation has been around Graeme’s work and plant collections, it is Rosemary who has taken the rare step to gift this property and its arboretum to Auckland. As an owner of Platt’s Nursery, she also worked in the business and is very knowledgeable about natives. Rosemary was always the strong support that enabled Graeme’s collecting and inventing. No one understands better the huge asset to conservation efforts that their work together created, and what a tragedy it would have been to lose the arboretum. We can remember Rosemary’s generosity when we first visit our new regional park, as in the very first green space we will be welcomed by Moo, the sculpture by NZ artist Jamie Pickernell. Rosemary recently purchased Moo and had him placed there for the purpose of welcoming us.
Our new regional park in Greenhithe is symbolic of a life’s work and a family’s gift back to their community. It is a valuable and tangible legacy that the Platt family have given to Auckland and, as is only right, its arboretum will always be known as the Platt Arboretum.
