Topic: Te Parapara Garden - Hamilton Gardens
Topic Type: Place
Te Parapara Garden - A brief background into the establishment of the Te Parapara Garden including Te Ara Whakatauki and Te Waharoa.
In 1984, Hamilton City Council adopted the Operative Management Plan for the Hamilton City Gardens to demonstrate the relationship between people and gardens. One of the aims of the plan was to establish different types of cultural portraying traditions that have influenced gardening, such as those seen in the newly opened Te Parapara Garden.
Established on an abandoned Maaori Pa site, Te Parapara encapsulates the traditional gardening methods as used by Maaori before the arrival of settlers to this country. Originally labelled the Tainui garden, Te Parapara Garden has fulfilled a dream that was born in the early 1980s. With the establishment of the Te Parapara Garden Trust and with the assistance of Wiremu Puke of Nga Mana Toopu o Kirikiriroa, Maaori and European worked together to develop a detailed plan and raise funds to begin work on the garden.
When visitors first approach the garden they enter the realm of Haumia-tiketike, the God of uncultivated plants, and the path that leads through this into the realm of Rongomataane, the cultivated world - te maara.
The garden was built in two stages, the first being the realm of Haumia-tiketike (grasses). The path that leads from the central piazza towards Te Parapara is called 'Te Ara Whakatauki' or The Path of Proverbs. Looking carefully at the planting in this part of the garden visitors will see that plants are arranged to illustrate whakatauki or proverbs. Each proverb has been selected to draw on plants that have been depicted in each whakatauki and in turn these plants have been arranged to show a journey, so that when people first step onto the path they are at the point of departure from Hawaiikii which then leads through to the waharoa and the area of Kingitanga. This movement along the path takes the visitor from what is general to Maaori as a people to what is more local.
More information about the types of plants used can be found at the Hamilton Gardens. See here for more details on how you can experience this wonderful garden first hand.
