Jan Worthington hosted about a dozen low vision visitors at the Hurworth Country Garden. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
For the first time in its 35 year history the Taranaki Garden Festival is offering a tour specifically designed for the blind and those with low vision.
It has teamed up with staff from the Puke Ariki Museum trained in the art of 'audio description' to help tap into other senses piqued by a visit to the garden - such as smell, touch and hearing.
Pictorial curator at Puke Ariki Chanelle Carrick trained as an audio descriptor during lockdown.
With two colleagues she guided about a dozen visually-impaired visitors around the Hurworth Country Garden - a beautifully restored colonial villa - on the outskirts of New Plymouth.
The Hurworth Country Garden. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Chanelle Carrick said it was a job that required you to keep your wits about you.
"With a group like this we have people with really mixed levels of vision, so some people will be able to see something that's up close to them, but when you come out into a really large space like this it can be quite challenging to tell them where to go, what direction you're heading and what's around you, so it's about observing who your walking with and taking notice of what they might need."
She said essentially describing a garden was not unlike describing an art work.
"You can kind of do different levels of description. You can describe a general area, you can describe movement through a space, you can go right down to the detail of describing one flower and it's petals and it's colour, it's texture and it's smell.
"So, you're really trying to paint a picture I suppose but through words. It's really challenging but it's also a creative process in it's own right."
Chanelle Carrick describes the Hurworth Country Garden for Lance Girling-Butcher. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Here she describes a miniature maple to former newspaper editor Lance Girling-Butcher.
"It's one of the really feathery maples. It's so fluffy isn't it. It's so lovely. So, this is a really really deep purple red. I suppose it's the colour of a good merlot really or that's how I would think of it.
"It comes up from a central trunk and it's only really at about chest height on you Lance, so it's not a very tall maple and it just weeps down really gently and it's probably about an arm's width wide."
Lance Girling-Butcher lost his sight about 16 years ago and loved the new initiative.
"It gets us outdoors and you can hear how effective a description like that is for someone who can't see anything.
"Most of the people here today have got a little bit of sight, so they can probably find their way around I just stumble along with my cane, but I'd be sitting inside today doing emails or reading a book, so it's got me outside."
He could visualise the plants using the descriptions and touch.
Margaret Kreegher uses touch to understand plants better. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Margaret Kreegher - who has been legally blind since she was 9 years old - also liked to get hands on.
"I touch, so I've got to be very gentle if I'm in a garden and I'm always gentle. I touch and feel and it's a nice way of finding out what the actual material of the flower is. I know that sounds silly but the actual touch of the flower and the shape of the leaf."
And it turned out the host at the Hurworth Country Garden, Jan Worthington, was also a dab hand at this sensory guide business.
She took Margaret Kreegher under her wing.
"This is this rose, this old English rose. You smell that. Isn't that beautiful and then you've got lavender there.
"So, the old fashioned English roses often have that lovely strong perfume. A lot of English roses come out really highly perfumed, but they go back many years of breeding."
Margaret Kreegher, left, smells flowers from Jan Worthington's Hurworth Country Garden. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Jan Worthington said hosting the low vision group had been a revelation.
"They're looking for other things, they're wanting to tough feel and smell, so we've been picking leaves, lavenders, flowers, you know, for them to have that other sensory experience and it's just lovely to be able to share with them."
Margaret Kreegher hoped the audio descriptor initiative would continue.
"This is amazing. I stopped going to gardens. I got bored because I didn't know what I was looking at, but this is tremendous. I'm hoping this will take off."
The Hurworth Country Garden. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
The Audio Described Garden Tour was made possible by Weir Bros. Transport which provided a bus and driver free of charge.
The Taranaki Garden Festival - which showcases 43 gardens across the region - is held simultaneously with the Taranaki Art Trail and Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail.
It runs until Sunday.
