Spring growth, the wettest winter yet and contractor's workloads are among Tauranga City Council's reasons why weeds are running rampant in residential Papamoa Beach areas.

Papamoa Beach resident Dorothy Seymour got in touch with the Weekend Sun after being fed up with the sight of overgrown weeds among her local streets –having no luck with TCC so far to address the issue.

'The state of the island flowerbeds at road junctions at Papamoa are an absolute disgrace,” says Dorothy.

'Weeds are 60cm high, barley grass is rampant.”

The main areas of concern for Dorothy are namely the median strip flower beds on streets such as Santa Monica Drive, Santa Barbara Drive, Santa Fe Key and Gravatt Road.

Dorothy has rung the Tauranga City Council several times over the past year calling for maintenance of the weeds.

'They answer and listen to your problems, but then they send it onto somebody else, and then they pass it onto the garden contractor or whatever and you don't hear anything more.”

Not the same

'We moved here 17 years ago and it was a pleasure to walk the streets and waterways, now known as the ‘weedways'.”

Dorothy says that the central street flowerbeds used to always be kept up.

'Somebody would come around every nine months or so and weed and put down fresh bark, and it used to be nice and tidy and a pleasing place to live.”

When asked why it seems these median strip garden spaces have stopped receiving maintenance, Tauranga City Council spaces and places operations manager Warren Aitken says no areas have stopped being maintained.

'This situation is purely due to spring growth and the extra work load contractors need to achieve. The region has experienced the wettest winter going into spring on record. These conditions in conjunction with increased temperatures has created unprecedented growth.”

Daniel Oxenham, who owns and operates Tauranga Lawn Mowing, doesn't think the weather has increased the weed growth.

'It's basically too wet for the grass to grow because it doesn't have all of what it needs, because it doesn't have the sunlight …it is warmer but it's certainly not as warm as it could be.

'It is harder to keep up because everything is just wet. I still work in the rain but it's just harder because everything is just that much heavier.”

Daniel primarily operates in the Tauranga Lakes area and says there is a similar issue of grass and weed overgrowth.

'You see everyone complaining about it on the [Lakes community] Facebook page.

'We've got a lot of grass areas around here.”

According to Warren, garden maintenance visits are usually carried out about every three weeks 'under normal conditions”.

'During high growth periods, known as 'flushes”, visits can be delayed significantly as each garden asset requires more time to service.”

Tauranga Lawn Mowing owner and Lakes resident Daniel Oxenham works in the rain and says he has never had to put a rain jacket on as many times in the nine years he's done mowing work. Photo: John Borren.

Daniel believes tending to public garden assets needs to occur every two weeks to keep on top of growth.

'If you leave your lawn for four weeks it's going to get pretty bloody messy.

'I just don't think they've got the personnel to do the job properly to clean it up.”

Action promised

With other locals in the area having the same complaints, Dorothy says her friend who lives on The Boulevard at Papamoa Beach has started to see progress of weed issues.

'She spotted a council representative [at the Papamoa Library] and spoke to her and also showed her photos from her cellphone and that seemed to really get things moving because the following week there were a couple of men working on the Boulevard's section.”

On Monday, December 5, Warren stated that garden maintenance of the Papamoa Beach streets that Dorothy has put into question will be carried out in the next seven working days.

'One of these gardens requires renewal, which will happen as the seasons change in 2023.”

Dorothy says The Boulevard's garden appears to be improving and waits hopefully to see her local streets returned to their former glory soon.

'I'd like it to go back to how it used to be – being well maintained. I had considered sending a bill for gardening gloves to the council for Mitre 10.”