One Bellevue woman is finding joy while facing a bowel cancer diagnosis by nurturing a Tauranga City Council-owned reserve.

Tucked behind Mulberry Lane, where Debra and husband Guy Russell live in Bellevue, is a nature reserve area that’s home to a creek, bridge, banks and pathways leading to Bellevue Park and Ōtūmoetai Conservation Area.

Debra, 74, said the couple wound up in Bellevue in 2022 after a dream home project in Tairua was halted by earthquake-proofing, engineering and insurance issues.

This caused her to have a “complete breakdown”. “Because I’d had the previous cancers before coming here, I needed to start again, otherwise I was just going to fall apart; and that’s the beginning of the story.”

After renovating their Bellevue home and working on their garden, Debra set to work on the reserve behind their property, which they said was overgrown and unruly with pest plants.

“I kept looking down below and going: ‘Ew yuck! This is awful’,” Debra said.

Creek revealed

When she started improving the council-owned land three and a half years ago, Debra was still working part-time.

“I used to do it [gardening] after work for many hours.”

She estimates she’d spent “thousands” on plants for the reserve: bromeliads, ribbonwood, tītoki, flaxes and grasses.

Debra said the council brought rocks in for her to use, but it would have required group involvement to have the plants supplied too.

The Russells on the bridge of the council-owned reserve that Debra has transformed with her green fingers. Photo / Kelly O’Hara

“I asked a few people, [but they] weren’t keen to be involved so I just did it myself.

“Every time the neighbourhood produces some mulch, they ask us if we want it…the neighbours have been really good.”

Debra’s labour of love is a daily effort involving weeding, mowing, rock installation and rubbish collection.

“I’ve always been environmental and I want to save what’s down there and the creek. I don’t want a dirty creek, and the waters water’s been really clean.”

Guy said his wife had transformed the reserve’s landscape.

“It’s been a huge change. You couldn’t even see the creek before. It was covered in pest plants, weeds, and we didn’t know there were waterfalls in there.”

Debra said Guy had been a great help with sprucing up the reserve.

“He does all the hard work that I can’t do. He’s a blessing with this and with my cancer, how he just helps me.”

Debra is a keen mosaic artist and has won competitions in Hamilton for her elaborate garden mosaic creations.

A distraction

Debra has gardened in the reserve while facing bowel cancer.

“I don’t think I’ll get a remission. I lost a sister a few years ago too from cancer…”

Her personal struggles with bowel cancer span more than 20 years. She was diagnosed with the cancer again last December.

“I was in hospital for two weeks and a week after I got out of hospital I went down there [into the reserve] and still worked like a Trojan because I didn’t want to lose it, because it’s been my joy.”

Debra said caring for the reserve had been a “tremendous” help in the face of her diagnosis, because it gave her a space to switch off.

“I don’t think about it. I go down and I just work like a little Trojan with my weeding. I spray it and – don’t laugh at me – but sometimes I talk to my plants and go: ‘Come on you, start growing!’

“It’s been for me, to help me personally and my cancer, but it’s created a little heaven. A lot of people come down here and go: ‘We started walking down here because we want to see your paradise you’ve created’ and that’s really special. We’ve bought the bird life back because it was dead here.”

Occasional thorns

However, the hard yakka hadn’t been all roses. Debra said she’d come up against littering, people leaving dog poo behind and school kids had pulled out plants and thrown them into the creek.

“I just keep persevering.”

Through tear-filled eyes, Debra said: “It’s been pretty sad getting through a lot of things but that garden’s helped me eh, and I do get hurt when people don’t respect it”.

“I want people to understand my story, why I do what I do.”

The Weekend Sun asked Tauranga City Council if it’s rare for a community member to care for council-owned land.

“While this particular occasion in Bellevue Reserve is a one-off, we do work with various groups and members of the public who want to care for and help maintain our reserves and public land,” council acting head of spaces and places Ross Hudson said.

“The area that Debra is planting is within and directly adjacent to an area that we currently maintain. The planting is well maintained, weed-free, visually beautiful and is consistent with the use of the area – being a vegetated space in the city.”

Through Debra Russell’s labour of love in the reserve, the creek has been revealed behind their home. Photo / Kelly O’Hara

Hudson said the council had reached “common ground” with Debra but he does “ask that anyone with a green finger talk to us before expanding their gardens beyond their own property”.

Debra continues tending to her paradise and enduring the health hardships that come with her cancer diagnosis.

“It’s a long journey but it’s good to talk about it, because I want people to know you can survive if you really want to,” Debra said.

“Every day I want to be alive, and I want to be alive for him [Guy]. Don’t I? For you, and for my garden. It’s the best I can do – being really positive.”