Green Wall in Rural Town Centre

‘BALCLUTHA’ lettering in steel on upright column.

On Monday I accompanied Nigel from Dunedin to Balclutha (rural township about an hour’s drive from our home in Dunedin). With some time on my hands, I decided to wander up the main street and take a look at the Green Wall that was installed during a major Main Street Upgrade in 2015.

I was surprised and pleased that the green wall includes mostly native plants and the only exotics I spotted were patches of bergenias within the tapestry of the plants. The bergenias had a few pink flowers and they looked nice against the mostly green surrounds.

These photos were taken around 1pm on a bright, sunny day so not the best conditions for getting good photographs from my cellphone camera!

Public square adjoining the Main Street – part of the Main Street Upgrade, Balclutha

Upright columns, new paving, modern streetlight, and green wall in the background. The green wall has one very long length plus a short end. I like the green wall but can’t understand why they had to ‘dot’ interpretation panels along its length. In my opinion this majorly detracts from the visual appeal of the green wall. Without the panels it looks like a very interesting natural, continuous tapestry. For comparison you can see a photo of the green wall without the panels HERE. If you follow this link and take a look, I’d love you to leave a comment below about what you think! Do you agree (or not)?

None of the panels I read were about the green wall. They contained historical information about the town. I thought they would have been better placed in the open area where you can stand right in front of them to read them and look at the photos.

A few more shots before I finish this post … I’ll do another follow-on post that has more detail about the green wall planting.

 

The short ‘End’ part of the green wall, Balclutha

Here (above) you can see the Bergenia in flower, surrounded by a varied assortment of native plants. I was impressed with the variety of native plants included in the green wall. Very pleased about that.

My overall impression was that the green wall is very attractive, appropriate (the mix of native species is very educational about our native plants) and helps to offset the brightness from the pavement on strong-light days. I imagine tourists are likely to hang out here when stopping on their way through Balclutha and it provides a pleasant area to relax and perhaps learn about some of our native flora.

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Text and photos by Exploring Colour (2017)