Anyone popping into Tauranga Hospital during the last few weeks may have discovered that a turn-of-the-century restored villa in the hospital grounds has been decked out with bright red woollen poppies.

Mental Health service co-ordinator Debbie Lawrence has been creating a wall of knitted poppies at her Tauranga Hospital workplace.

'I was going to knit a couple of poppies for members of staff here and then I thought how I'd seen the poppies at the Tower of London; we could do something like that,” says Debbie.

Created to mark the World War 1 centennial, 888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the Tower of London's famous moat in 2014, with each poppy representing a British military fatality during World War 1.

Debbie has lived here in New Zealand for nearly five years with her husband and daughter, and has a son back in the UK.

'I'm missing family back in England.”

A desire to honour Anzac soldiers prompted her to start creating a wall of poppies in remembrance along the front verandah entrance to ‘Building Number 2' which houses the hospital's mental health management team. Chicken mesh extends from the white trellis latticework of the verandah of the pale lemon painted villa, down to the garden below, which has been planted with white crosses also adorned with the red knitted poppies.

'I started knitting them earlier in the year,” says Debbie, who put out an appeal through the BOP District Health Board website for others to help give the wall some ‘wow' factor after she had already knitted about 200 poppies herself.

She provided an easy pattern and started receiving many knitted poppies back as people responded.

'I am so grateful that so many people have contributed,” says Debbie. 'This includes people not working at the hospital including my friends and lots of family of staff. In Whakatane a staff member's church has been involved, and we've had patients from the Mental Health Ward - Te Whare Maiangiangi - contributing as well.”

As the boxes of knitted poppies have arrived, Debbie has been adding the flowers to the growing poppy wall, attaching them to the mesh.

The adorned villa is located on 20^th Ave, at Te Whare Maiangiangi. By Anzac Day, the front of it will be popping with colour.