Plants from a Mosgiel nursery will supply the "wow" factor at Expo 2010 Shanghai, China, which showcases 200 countries in the biggest world expo. Gillian Vine reports.
At Expo 2010 Shanghai, China, which opens on May 1, New Zealand's pavilion is expected to attract 400,000 visitors a day. Multiply that by the 184 days the expo is open and - assuming the numbers are maintained - more than 73 million people will get a taste of New Zealand.
Designed by Tina Hart and Kim Jarrott, who were members of the New Zealand team that won gold at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2004, our exhibit portrays New Zealand from the mountains to the sea. To get the required look, tens of thousands of plants, mainly natives, have been used, many of them from Mosgiel.
Wallis's Nurseries, of Mosgiel, has the contract to supply all the plants. Its Chinese nursery, Shanghai Horticulture Opel Co Ltd, three-quarters of an hour from the expo site, put Wallis's in a strong position but even so, managing director Clive Wallis says he spent a lot of "very late nights working on the initial proposal", then putting together stock to go to China, arranging its transport in four 13m containers.
The challenge for Mr Wallis and his staff at Opel was twofold: growing or sourcing all the "thousands and thousands" of plants needed and building quarantine facilities to house them when the containers reached Shanghai.
The strict quarantine rules are a significant change from a decade ago when Opel was set up and it was "like an open quarantine" but Mr Wallis explains that Chinese membership of the World Trade Organisation now "means China has had to align with WTO protocols".
Quarantine was on site at Opel in special buildings. None was high enough to accommodate 6m-tall nikau palms, so a "Kiwi extension" pushed the roof skywards.
At the same time, staff had to lift their already-extensive production levels in Shanghai to grow everything from grass to groundcover plants.
After a month at sea in the temperature-controlled containers and more than a week to obtain clearance from customs at Shanghai, the plants finally saw the light of day. Mr Wallis was nervous about how they would travel but need not have worried.
"Isn't that going to do us proud?" he says, showing a photo taken of perfect ponga, the picture taken just after the plants were unloaded.
Work will continue apace producing fresh plants for the next six months to keep the exhibit looking fresh. On top of that, the expo's run straddles the typhoon season.
"We're really concerned about a typhoon going through the nursery," Mr Wallis says.
Additional plantings have been undertaken just in case that happens, he said.
Mr Wallis is delighted with the way his Chinese staff, under Opel's Shanghai manager Lillian Hung, have risen to the challenge.
"They have been superb. I'm so rapt with their attitude and commitment, and I've been very impressed at their ability to think outside the square and make such a great job," he said.
Needing additional hot water for keeping some plants warm, staff came up with a novel solution, one Mr Wallis found out about when he went to have a shower while staying at the company's on-site apartment. The shower water was cold, as the hot had been diverted to the nursery.
"I checked into a hotel for the next three nights," Mr Wallis said with a chuckle.
The New Zealand exhibit's features include a Rotorua mud pool, an extensive grassland, a realistic-looking 12m-high pohutukawa tree made by an Upper Hutt company and, outside the VIP lounge, a living wall 10m by 15m.
"Plants have to look out of this wall smiling," Mr Wallis said.
To do that is tricky but using technology developed in Canada, Opel prepared hundreds of plastic trays - "Each one is like two bread trays" - with felt lining and netting impregnated with fertiliser, before filling them with an assortment of plants chosen to give a lush, green look when seen from the lounge. A trickle gravity feed will keep them moist.
Backup baskets have to be ready at all times to replace any that look the slightest bit jaded.
The wall has been the most concentrated work but there is a lot more going on, from the red manuka around the mud pool to the kiwifruit vine Opel sourced in China.
"That's rather like selling ice-cream to Eskimos," Mr Wallis says, a reminder that kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) originally came from southwest China and the fruit had been gathered there for centuries.
When the gates close on the expo at the end of October, there will be another huge job, dismantling the New Zealand exhibit and removing the plants.
"Our responsibility is also to exit the expo. All the New Zealand plant material has to go back to our nursery," Mr Wallis said.
For the moment, though, he is not looking that far ahead, preferring to concentrate on his next trip to Shanghai, for the May 1 opening of the expo. Family members, including his wife, Linda, are accompanying him to get a first-hand look at what has been keeping the Mosgiel businessman awake at nights.
