Ryman pioneers each interpret retiring in their own special ways. For Arch Crerar, this means you will find him in sunny Nelson ‘sowing the seeds’ in his life at Ernest Rutherford Village.
In a spot, that was luckily right beside the gardening shed, Arch has built himself quite a garden in front of his and his wife’s Lesley village townhouse. The idea and foundation of the plot came after a bit of a discussion with the village gardening team but soon saw Arch with his own patch.
Arch remembers asking, “can I pick up a bit of that lawn? And they said just a little bit, so I'm lucky. I live at the end of the village, so I don't worry anybody.
“I'm very happy that they allow me to do what I'm doing, nobody's growled. So, I just carry on. I do my own thing.”
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The Archie Boy daffodil shines outside of Arch's village townhouse.
After making the decision to downsize from their two storey “big section” down the road, Arch and Lesley moved into Ernest Rutherford Village and have now been there for three years. “This is a good place to live because wherever you walk there's gardens and the gardener's doing a good job up here. We've got nothing to grizzle about.”
For almost 10 years Arch spent a good chunk of his time cross pollinating daffodils. In 2012, this saw him officially registering his daffodil – appropriately named ‘Archie Boy’ - with the National Daffodil Society of New Zealand.
The Archie Boy daffodil consists of a double triangle of brilliant yellow petals, set off by bright orange corona. It can even be spotted glowing in Arch’s townhouse garden.
This year, Archie Boy was recognised in the 2024 daffodil annual magazine, a publication of
the National Daffodil Society, as a premiere at the 2023 South Island show.
“There's a lady in Lincoln called Denise Macquarie and she'd be one of the top growers
and breeders in New Zealand now. She used to live up here in Nelson. She exhibited it,
Archie Boy.”
Arch poses with the 2024 New Zealand Daffodil Annual that featured his prize winning bloom.
Since the flowers registration in 2012, Archie Boy daffodils have been grown all over New Zealand, including in the region where he grew up. While Arch has since put down his shovel when it comes to cross pollinating the daffodils, he’s a big fan of growing dahlias, which decorate his village garden. He’s even been seen collecting them into bouquets to hand out to the ladies around the village.
“I like dahlias because they flower from mid-December right through to the first frost, which is about five months. It’s good value and they just keep flowering.”
Arch’s love of gardening began at a young age. He grew tobacco for 20 years with his brother in their hometown of Dovedale, which was about 50km outside of Nelson. “I was born and bred here, and I don't think I'd be going anywhere.”
He later joined the Brightwater Horticultural Society and was president of the society for 10 years. While Arch appreciates the village community, he loves that his garden allows him to do his own thing.
“Gardening is very good for your head. You don't have to listen to world events. The moment you get out in the garden, it's all gone and you're doing your garden thing, so it's good, really, for your mental health.”
While he doesn’t tend to enter as many of his flowers into large scale flower shows, his creations occasionally pop up in a couple of local events in Nelson. He says he prefers to focus on sharing his blooms with the village community.
“When they had the show here, I put some in and did quite well. So, I'm up there with them. But now I'm just quite happy making up bunches of flowers and giving them to the ladies.”
In Arch coming to the village, he found a village lifestyle that worked for him and allowed him to bring his passions into his retirement years - along with the comfort that extra help is available to him if he needs it.
“It is what you make it, like there's some people who will sit inside all day and others get out and get involved. There's 90-year-olds running around here who are as fit as a trout. I like to take a leaf out of their book. You know they're out there going for it. So, you’ve got to adapt and if at some stage you want help, it's there.”