By Alicia Carr, Journalism student
The Hurunui Garden Festival is going ahead after a big clean up after last week's storm. Photo: Supplied / Jenny Cooper
North Canterbury is back on its feet just in time for one of its biggest weekends of the year, the Hurunui Garden Festival.
Wild winds buffeted the Hurunui district last week and sent trees tumbling around like matchsticks.
Hurunui Garden Festival committee member Jenny Cooper said a huge effort from the community meant the annual festival could go ahead despite extensive weather damage and power outages last week.
The festival, which began on Thursday morning, was established in 2018 by local garden owners in Hurunui who wanted to open up their gardens to the public and attract visitors to the region.
Cooper owns Blue House in Amberley, one of the 20 gardens showcased.
The four-day festival features artwork, sculptures, plants, and arts and crafts for sale as well as food carts.
"It is a celebration of the beautiful area," Cooper said.
The community rallied to help get the area ready for the festival after last week's storm downed trees. Photo: Supplied / Jenny Cooper
But only a week ago the area was hit by what Cooper described as a river of wind.
It was one of the worst storms she had seen in her 12 years of living in the area.
One of the largest Hurunui gardens, Flaxmere, owned by Penny Zino, suffered the worst.
"Flaxmere is a beautiful property and it's all about the view to Mount Tekoa. [It's] got this big formal lawn with mature, almost 100-year-old trees on either side. And [Penny] said she had sat there and just watched these trees go down one by one," Cooper said.
Penny Zino owns Flaxmere, one of the largest Hurunui gardens. Photo: Supplied / Jenny Cooper
The damage was difficult to witness, Cooper said.
"You just look at it and you think 'how on earth do you even start cleaning this up?' and you've got six days before the biggest festival of the year."
But the community had rallied around and got the area and the gardens ready for the festival.
"We have had so many offers of help.
"Everybody up this way has a chainsaw and we all have a trailer, so people just turn up with their chainsaws and their trailers and say 'point me! What do you need doing?'."
Photo: Supplied / Jenny Cooper
After days of clearing the gardens and trees, the gardens were pretty as a picture, Cooper said.
"You'd never know we had such extensive damage, the gardens just look amazing ... until you look over the fence and can see the piles and piles of trees."
The clean-up ahead of the festival. Photo: Supplied / Jenny Cooper
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