The bespoke gate — crafted out of neglected gardening tools and long forgotten organ parts — is now hanging at the Temuka Community Gardens on Maude St, and serves as Mr Green’s parting gift to the community after a 50-plus year career.
The gates were created by Mr Green and other staff at the South Island Organ Company in Washdyke; designed by Moritz Fassbender and constructed by Mr Green.
Community garden organiser Tracy Iles Leith said she had sourced a picture online of something that would suit, but the end product was far more elaborate.
Ms Iles Leith said the arched gates gave people a welcoming peep into the garden.
"If it was too high people might be scared to come in."
After 52 years of working for the organ company, it was Mr Green’s last project there before his retirement.
The tools used to construct the gate were donated by people at the community garden.
He said while some components had looked "a bit sad" when they had been donated "they are standing proud at the moment".
One of the "sad" tools was a garden fork which had lost a tine, which he said offered neighbourhood cats a "natural cat door".
To the organ company’s managing director John Hargraves the most fascinating tool in the gate was a hay lofter, he had never seen one before.
"I bet that scythe could tell a few stories."
Mr Hargraves had worked 56 years for the company and said this was "hardly" the strangest job the company had had.
It was not even the first gates they had constructed; those had been in the St Joseph’s Cathedral in Dunedin in 1975.
Mr Hargraves said, "they’re still swinging".
He said the gate at the garden was a wonderful project as it was one of the few projects everyone was able to admire.
Ms Iles Leith said it had made the garden accessible to volunteers of all ages.
Before the new gate was hung, a blue tarpaulin had been the makeshift gate, which had been been a challenge for anyone getting into the garden.
The gate had allowed older members to access the garden with ease, some bringing a chair to sit on so they could work their way down vegetable plots weeding comfortably.
Organisers were all about making the area accessible to all walks of life.
Younger members — who had grown up playing bullrush on the land where the garden was now situated — were now volunteering while keeping an eye on their own children who were playing at the adjoining playground.
The group also had plans for paths to be cleared through the native space located behind the garden, so children could play in the shade on hot days.
She said the gates were "getting talked about".
Mr Hargraves said the company built things to be repaired, "which is not what things are about today".
"Don’t come to us for mass-produced items, but if you have a wild idea."
As for Mr Green, after retiring before Christmas, he has fixed a tallboy ... and constructed another gate.
