Gardener pleased to be Saving more Daylight

NOBODY loves Daylight Saving more than Annie Wells.

While farmers may say it upsets their stock and parents complain it's hard to get children to bed when it's still light outside, others, like Annie, are revelling in Daylight Saving's extended season.

There's no way she'll forget to put her clocks forward an hour before heading for bed tonight and she plans to make the most of the extra Daylight Saving New Zealand will have from this year.

The period will run for 27 weeks, from the last Sunday in September until the first Sunday in April, after the Government succumbed to public pressure to have our summer hours extended. A petition to extend Daylight Saving was presented to Parliament last year with an estimated 42,000 signatures.

For avid gardner Annie, it's a chance to get into the garden and remove all those weeds that started to appear in spring.

"I think Daylight Saving is great - I don't know about the farmers but I love it."

She has lived in Rotorua since her family moved here in 1957 and now has a three-acre block on Hamurana Rd that she has planted out into a garden. She will be extra busy this year preparing her garden for the Rotorua Garden Festival in November so the extra daylight hours will be well used.

Daylight Saving was first suggested by MP Sir Thomas Sidey in 1909.

He argued that extra daylight during the summer months would be "of especial value to indoor workers and the community as a whole, as it gives one additional hour for recreation of all kinds, whether playing games or working in garden plots".