On the grounds of the South Island’s largest mental health facility are two exotic plants putting on a display that’s been 40 years in the making. Caring for them now, as he has throughout every one of those 40 years, is a gardener who has outlasted them both.
Hillmorton Hospital gardener and the 40-year wait for a flower to bloom
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“It was only for four or five weeks ... until the old man got back,” he says.
Now past retirement age, Hanton is still there – and still gardening.
“I’m still making my mind up if I’m gonna stay or not,” Hanton says with a smile as he goes about his daily duties.
Things were markedly different in the 70s and the groundskeeping operation that he was part of had a vast reach.
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“I was in the nursery originally – that grew plants for all the hospitals then. A central hub for 21 hospitals, Chatham Islands as well,” Hanton recalls.
He was one of 17 gardeners when he started. Now he’s one of one.
“The grass [mowing] is contracted out, there’s a gardener at PMH [Princess Margaret Hospital] and me here,” says Hanton, crossing the sprawling Hillmorton Hospital site that he maintains. He wants to show a project he unwittingly started about 40 years ago.
“I bought a packet of Yates mixed cactus seed for 45 cents. I sowed it when I was in the nursery and these two plants seemed different to the others,” Hanton recalls with enthusiasm.
“So, I kept them in the nursery for however long it was. And then the nursery closed down, so I took them home for 10 years”.
Growing plants has always been Hanton’s favourite part of the job. There are plants and trees all over the Hillmorton site that were cultivated and planted by his hand – as well as the two he heads towards.
“They got a bit big [at home], so I brought them back [to Hillmorton]”.
The plants he sowed in the early 1980s, and cared for at his place of work and then at home, are furcraea.
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He’s only recently bothered to find that out – but hasn’t yet determined which variety it is. They are succulent plants belonging to the family Asparagaceae, native to tropical regions of Mexico and South America.
“It’s in the Tequila family,” Hanton says excitedly, before pointing to the tips of the plants now poking up above the roof of the building in front of them.
Finishing his story, the accidental gardener says the two odd-looking plants had another home before their present one.
“But they started to get full of cigarette butts and stuff like that. So I planted them where they are now, which is probably 15-16 years [ago],” says Hanton.
The plants are peculiar to say the least. The bottom looks like a regular flax – but the 6m towering flower spike that sprang up from the middle of them took even Hanton by surprise.
“I was around here a couple of weeks ago just doing some spraying and I thought, ‘What’s that’? A couple of big asparagus sticking up.”
After 40 years of nurturing the plant, he has received a payoff he had no idea was coming.
“It’s not the prettiest thing in the world but it’s ... unique,” says Hanton with admiration.
The flower spike signals the beginning of the end for the furcraea. A once-in-a-lifetime display before it spreads its seeds.
“Once it’s finished flowering, the plant’s finished,” says Hanton, adding he’ll have to wait another 40 years for its new seeds to flower.
Hanton isn’t finished yet, though. He’s still pulling a 40-hour week in a place that he loves to be. But, as he makes his way back to his shed, he admits he’s thought about how much longer he can continue in such a demanding job.
“One day I’ll probably wake up like I can’t do that anymore. But so long as I can still physically get up and come to work and do what’s required to a certain degree, I’ll do it.”
His shed houses a collection of hospital history, like an unofficial museum of relics.
“That’s what they say about me, Ron the relic – is he still here?” he jokes.
He is. The furcraea, however, will be gone by Christmas.
