A Green-fingered Genius

The story of nurseyman Rob Bayly

Written for Beachlife magazine in 2011

He was a horticulturist of some significance. He was one of the early curators at Taranaki’s Pukeiti rhododendron garden. He came to Gisborne at the invitation of Douglas Cook to create a tree nursery at Eastwoodhill. He pioneered the propagation of hibiscus plants in New Zealand. His name is synonymous in Gisborne with the knowledge of all things to do with gardening.

Horticulturist and nurseryman Rob Bayly left a colourful legacy across the North Island.

 

 

The man in question is Rob Bayly who for 35 years was the driving force behind Bayly’s Plant Nursery – which had its beginnings in Lysnar Street at Okitu and then on Wainui Road on what is still often referred to as “Bayly’s Bend”.

Rob passed away from a stroke on November 13 last year (2010) at the age of 78. He and his wife and lifelong partner in business Claire had retired back in 1996 and were living in Lytton Road.

Robin Bernard Bayly was born in New Plymouth on April 4 of 1932 to milkman Keith, and Annie Bayly. He was the youngest of four children – two sisters and a brother. From an early age he had an interest in amateur radio operating and was keen to pursue a career in that direction. However a P&T technicians apprenticeship was the compromise until at age 16 he was offered weekend work in a plant nursery, Purdie’s Begonia Gardens. Recognising Rob’s hard work ethic and talent for horticulture the owner, Alex Purdie, offered Rob a fulltime position and he left the Post Office for good.

Around this time Rob had caught the eye of Bell Block dairy farmers’ daughter Claire Bracegirdle. After a four-year courtship the couple were married in April of 1953. Rob was just 21 and Claire was 19.

In 1954 their first child Jenni was born, followed by Irene in 1957 and Paul in 1959.

In 1956 Rob was successful in applying for the job of head curator of the recently established Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust Gardens. The Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust was conceived by a group of  forward-thinking horticulturalists and businessmen who formed the New Zealand Rhododendron Association in the 1950s, one of the founders being William Douglas Cook of Eastwoodhill near Gisborne.

A suitable 63-hectare block of land was found near New Plymouth which Douglas bought and eventually donated to a newly-formed Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust. The garden was officially opened in 1951 with Cook cutting the ribbon at the gate.

Rob Bayly was the third full-time curator of the garden, starting work there in 1956, following on from Arthur Gourdie and Les Boisen.

 

Rob Bayly in one of his greenhouses at the Wainui Road nursery in 1970.  An early view of the nursery. The new Bayly's Plant Centre opened in the Kaiti Mall in 1970.

On their arrival at Pukeiti he and Claire and toddler Jenni were provided with accommodation in Pukeiti Lodge which was at the time without power. It was here that Rob Bayly showed his brilliance as a man who could “turn his hand to anything” .

In a book about the history of Pukeiti he is described as: “A brilliant fellow. The hours he worked were quite ridiculous. He’d be working until 10 at night and up again at the crack of dawn. His labour was one of love, not money-driven.”

One of his first projects was supplying the lodge, the glass house and a water pump with power by building a water wheel in a nearby stream which drove a small generator. Mains power arrived in 1961 but Rob’s water wheel has been restored and is a historic feature of the garden to this day.

Rob and Claire had Irene and Paul while at Pukeiti and then in 1961 they were made an offer which seemed too good to refuse. The celebrated Douglas Cook asked them to come across to Gisborne to help with the continuing development of his Eastwoodhill Arboretum project.

The deal was that they would work three days a week in the arboretum and then be free to develop their own plant nursery business on 25 acres of land offered at a good price by Cook.

Just eight months after shifting to Ngatapa, sharing a house with the eccentric Cook, they were looking for new employment. The promised land was not forthcoming, wages weren’t paid and the arrangement had turned sour. The Baylys could have returned to Pukeiti but, with a deal already in place to supply Gisborne Sheepfarmers Supermarket with seedling plants, they decided to stay in Gisborne and start their own business.

A suitable plot of land with a house was found at 30 Lysnar Street at Okitu and thus began the Bayly’s long association with Wainui Beach. And so also began Bayly’s Plant Nursery which grew to become an icon of Gisborne gardening. Eldest daughter Jenni was a first day pupil at Wainui School and both Paula and Irene also attended the local school.

The nursery was established on the Lysnar Street property which had a lower level next to the Hamanatua Stream and on leased land across the road. Early in the venture a freak flood swamped the low-lying sections behind Lysnar Street and the couple lost their first year’s propagation.

They had to start again. To make ends meet Claire went out to work as a waitress and kitchenhand at the Chalet Rendezvous which had recently opened along Moana Road. For a few years Rob worked for the Gisborne City Council as assistant to the superintendant of reserves.

Rob Bayly in his signature trilby hat leads a fundraising tour of Eastwoodhill in 1973

 

 

When the Lysnar Street nursery became established they were able to lease a small section of empty land in the Kaiti Mall between the supermarket and Smythe’s Pharmacy and here began the Bayly’s foray into the retail side of gardening. Around this time Rob gained a contract to grow all the tomato plant seedlings for the Wattie cannery field tomato operation on the Poverty Bay flats.

Chance was to play its hand again for the Bayly’s when pharmacist Warren Smythe’s father died leaving a five acre plot of land with a house along Wainui Road to be sold. He offered it to Rob and Claire who accepted the opportunity and in 1970 they moved the nursery from Lysnar Street to the curve on State Highway 35 that soon became known as “Bayly’s Bend”. At the same time they moved to a bigger location in the Kaiti Mall where the business became known as Bayly’s Plant and Floral Centre with Claire utilising her talent as a florist.

The business then flourished for many years. Rob discovered a passion for hibiscus trees and with cuttings brought in from Australia he supplied hibiscus plants to garden centres all around New Zealand. At one time he had over 10,000 specimens growing in 130 varieties. He also studied the new science of tissue culture, working day and night in the nursery and in the shed the family called his “Holy Place”. Here he had his ham radio gear and his tissue culture equipment, experimenting with the propagation of the daphne plant particularly.

Rob took on the grafting of grape plants in the wake of the 1980s phylloxera epidemic, eventually growing 50,000 grapes plants annually for the wine industry. At the same time he landscaped and planted many rural and urban private gardens around Gisborne.

Rob was also largely responsible for the replanting of the grand old pohutukawa tree outside the Gisborne courthouse which blew over in Cyclone Bola.

After Cyclone Bola in 1987 the Bayly’s closed the Kaiti Mall shop and moved the business out to the Wainui nursery and then into town beside Pak‘NSave in 1994.

In 1996 they sold the nursery property to Murray and Mary Webb and retired to town, thus ending 35 years living at and near Wainui Beach.

Rob was a quiet man, happiest with his head down working but he left behind a huge legacy from his love and passion for plants. He was recognised for his work when Pukeiti named a rhododendron in his honour a few years ago. And he can also be remembered each time Gisborne gardeners admire their bright hibiscus flowers, for chances are that Rob Bayly’s green fingers were instrumental in their creation.

Rob and Claire Bayly on their retirement from the plant nursery business in 1996.