Dialogue: Hanging out for colour in a corridor of endless grey

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Down the middle of a river of dull bitumen, a mass of brilliant wildflowers wave seductively at passers-by.

For seven glorious kilometres down the Southern Motorway, orange poppies and pink cosmos jostle for attention with bossy blue cornflowers down the centre strip.

On the side of State Highway 20, the Mangere Motorway, you can still see the stragglers from last season's crop. This spring's growth is on its way.

But elsewhere on the highways worming their way out of Auckland's centre, the roadsides are still barren and boring, even though some little splotches of colour are almost hidden from motorists' view on the Northern and North-western Motorways.

Transit NZ's brainwave to grow motorway gardens and save money on mowing should be a blooming success. After a year of trials, the wildflowers are already helping prune costs, and apparently there has been nothing but cheery feedback from drivers.

So why could it be at least another 18 months before Transit even considers planting its annuals and perennials anywhere else?

North of the harbour bridge, the seeds of discontent are spreading among flower lovers who want their own avenues of colour. Almost 500 Hibiscus Coasters put their names on a petition to Transit NZ asking for wildflowers to grace the new stretch of motorway from Albany to Orewa.

Ava McGregor, the chairwoman of Keep Hibiscus Coast Beautiful, still cannot understand why a solitary flower has yet to take root along the new route.

"That road is finished now and still nothing has been planted. They told us we'd have to wait for a report to be written," she said. "Well people here are fed up waiting for their flowers. They want their simple pleasures now. Those flowers keep people happy."

In the offices of Transit NZ, regional highway engineer Phillip Sutton says there is some concern about sowing the foreign seeds in the north. The worry is that flying seeds will set root among native plantings in the neighbouring paddocks.

The seeds originate from California and Texas - where roadside wildflowers have been en vogue since the 1930s. Not only have the rambling gardens there cut back road maintenance bills, but they have reduced speeds on the highways as motorists slow down to drink in the scenery.

The difference between here and Texas is the way new crops are sown. Americans cut and bale the old growth, then take the bales to new soil, where the seeds are spread. In New Zealand, the weeds that grow among the flowers are too virile - each bale would contain its own batch of weeds.

The two plantations in the south are now sprouting second-generation blooms. Once the flowers have come to the end of their days, they are cut down so the seeds fall into the old beds, where nature takes over.

Although the plantings are virtually self-regenerating, Transit NZ must continue to till the soil and control the weeds. That's why Mr Sutton wants to wait at least another summer before reporting on the success or failure of the trial.

One concern looms larger than the cost of cutting grass: motorists' safety. Since the pretty pinks, purples and vivid reds became a cheerful blur on the landscape last spring, passers-by have not been able to help themselves from helping themselves.

Four-wheel-drives and family sedans pull over on the shoulders so their occupants can wade through head-high vegetation to pinch a bunch of papaver rhoeas, centaurea cyanus and cosmos bipinnatus.

It is not the demise of the blossoms that worries Transit NZ. "We're afraid that people will stop in a dangerous area and get hurt," Mr Sutton said.

"Motorways aren't for people to stop on. No one should be running out to the median strip to pick flowers. But we've received reports of it happening."

Nevertheless, the future of the wildflowers is looking rosy.

"We've already saved in maintenance bills and we've had hundreds of positive letters from the public. People say they find it quite soothing on their way to and from work," Mr Sutton said.

The problem is that it's taking too long to spread the seeds of gladness around. Those of us who drive the grey corridors of the Northern and North-western Motorways want our own sea of colour to smile at.