Council’s elves delve into top of the pops for 2023

On the tenth day of Christmas our Council gave to thee: ten flowering natives, nine Jeff Kinney top tens, 80 letters to Delaware, seven hundred llama pats, six lost drones in trees, five hundred rangatahi at youth nights, four thousand Agatha Christie loans, three flying trampolines, 2.5K social media posts, and one gold ring.

Dogs

Total number of dogs on Wellington City Council’s register is 14,024, and the most popular names are: 

• Charlie – 161
• Bella – 137
• Poppy – 129
• Luna - 115
• Coco – 114
• Archie – 106
• Molly – 102
• Max –101
• Frankie – 90
• Ruby – 89

At the other end of the table, with the one-of-a-kind names:

• Bellatrix Fluffy Butt Queen of the Woofs
• Zombie Rose (Zoe)
• Virginia Wolf
• Spunky
• Ricky Baker
• Sandwich
• Joan of Bark
• Augie D’Souza of Truffleway
• Awesome
• Fishie Fishie

Rubbish & Recycling

Zero Waste Education programme feedback from children

• Do tiger worms roar?
• When I grow up, I want to be a recycling policeman, with a fast recycling truck that I can drive to all the bad recyclers and show them how to do it properly. I will need lots of flashing lights and a siren.
• I wish I could hug all the worms and all the people at the recyling factories.
• I didn’t know how much Papatūānuku and the trees love us. I think I’d better start loving them back.
• I wish we could stop digging big holes in Mother Earth and filling them up with rubbish. But I do love diggers.
• I think I could be a tiger worm because I don’t like eating onion peel and orange peel either.
• If I was a glass bottle, I would shout, ‘Oi! Take my lid off!’ when someone was throwing me in the glass recycling bin.
• My brother literally can’t live without icecream.  I think I’d better learn how to make clothes and houses out of ice cream containers.
• I did not know that worm wee and poo could be such fun!
• The rubbish truck drivers and the people who work at the recycling factory and at the dump are the most kind of all the people in the world.

Parks, Sport & Recreation

The team from Parks, Sport & Recreation found all sorts of things around the city:

• 113 tonnes of dumped rubbish from parks and reserves   
• 6 drones and 3 trampolines in trees
• A pocket knife 
• A Garmin Forerunner watch 
• Various amounts of $$$
• A gold ring 
• A PS3 
• A bag of clocks
• Numerous sex toys 
• A couple of full gimp suits with accessories

Social Media 

Council’s social media team were busy across all channels:

• Number of posts: 2449
• Posts reach: 34,599,835
• Reactions: 709,092
• Incoming queries: 55,879
• Comments: 35,600 (not including TikTok)
• Link clicks: 244,972
• Short form video views: 8,037,096

Libraries

Top 10 things happening at Wellington City Libraries:
 
• Over four thousand loans of Agatha Christie titles 
• 700 people patted a llama, guanaco, or alpaca at library events 
• 870 letters were sent to Delaware as part of library penpal programme 
• People borrowed material across 62 different languages 
• Nearly 500 rangatahi attended youth nights at Waitohi and Karori  
• Over 50 loans of Air detectors (CO2 air monitors) 
• Most popular world language learnt online (not English or te reo Māori) was Spanish/Latin American 
• Published 170 Tūhono poems composed by tamariki 
• Approximately 700 book deliveries to Books at Home customers unable to visit the library 
• Answered over 10,000 customer enquiries made to the website

Top 10 adult fiction

• Birnam Wood / Eleanor Catton
• Lessons in chemistry / Bonnie Garmus
• The bullet that missed / Richard Osman
• The marriage portrait / Maggie O’Farrell
• Lucy by the sea : a novel / Elizabeth Strout
• Shrines of gaiety / Kate Atkinson
• The axeman's carnival / Catherine Chidgey
• Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Gabrielle Zevin
• The seven moons of Maali Almeida / Shehan Karunatilaka
• Mad honey : a novel / Jodi Picoult

Top 10 children fiction

• Double down / Jeff Kinney
• The getaway / Jeff Kinney
• Rodrick rules / Jeff Kinney
• The 13-storey treehouse / Andy Griffiths
• The third wheel / Jeff Kinney
• Hard luck / Jeff Kinney
• Diper överlöde / Jeff Kinney
• Big shot / Jeff Kinney
• The last straw / Jeff Kinney
• The ugly truth / Jeff Kinney

Top 10 non-fiction

• Spare / Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
• I'm glad my mom died / Jennette McCurdy
• The bookseller at the end of the world / Ruth Shaw
• Atomic habits / James Clear
• Did I ever tell you this? : a memoir / Sam Neill
• Straight up / Ruby Tui
• Just one thing : how simple changes can transform your life / Michael Mosley
• The light we carry : overcoming in uncertain times / Michelle Obama
• The myth of normal : trauma, illness & healing in a toxic culture / Gabor Maté
• There's a cure for this : a memoir / Emma Espinar

Top 10 interesting things digitised by Wellington City Libraries this year  

• The Coronation that didn’t happen: a 1902 coronation programme detailing festivities to be held at the Basin Reserve. Unfortunately the celebrations were cancelled just days out and King Edward VII was crowned later in the year.  
• The Wellington Motorists’ Handyguide: a 1930s publication issued when owning a private vehicle was still very much a novelty. It details how to drive a car, how to stick to the (very vague) road rules, what women need to know about cars, and some very rudimentary first aid involving brandy.   
• A letter from Lord Alfred Tennyson himself: this item was part of a collection of letters purchased some time ago by A. H. Reed and subsequently donated to Wellington City Libraries. 
• The Streets of My City: A classic for good reason. 
• 52,000 names: In a substantial effort of digitisation, the full Scholefield Papers are now searchable on Recollect. In 1939 a librarian by the name of Guy Scholefield decided to collect the family histories of every settler who arrived in Wellington prior to 1855, and kept every bit of correspondence. 
• Nga Tupuna II o Te Whanganui-a-Tara: We added the second volume of this much-used resource. It compiles short biographies of tupuna and Māori leaders active in Pōneke in the 1840s. 
• Berehaven House Refreshment Rooms: Tea Rooms at the Seatoun Wharf, c. 1905. In this image the building is surrounded by steep farmland, though is now a private residence surrounded by other homes. 
• Her Excellency’s Knitting Book: A 1915 publication aimed at giving women at home during the first world war a purpose: making garments would not only help provide for the soldiers but also ‘calm their nerves’ and provide a support network of social knitters. 
• An inventory of 1980s eating houses: Eating Houses in Wellington was published in 1980 and details popular restaurants and their histories. 
• A history of Miramar Island: Elson Best’s essay on the discovery of Motu-kairangi and the establishment of pa prior to the earthquake which displaced Te-Awa-a-Taia and turned Miramar into a peninsula. 

In the Gardens

Interesting rose names:

• My Mum   
• Honky Tonk Blues 
• Hot Pants 
• Madame President 
• Racy Lady 
• Sexy Rexy 
• Playboy 
• Heart Throb 
• Double Delight 
• For Your Eyes Only

iNaturalist observations in the Gardens
  
• Glow worms 
• Puriri Moth  
• Eastern Rosella  
• Kākā  
• Fly Argaric (mushroom) 
• Orange Pore Fungus 
• Kohekohe 
• Climbing Rātā 
• Japanese Cherry  
• common Sun orchid  
 
Native plants flowering in Ōtari over the holiday period: 

• Rātā (Metrosideros robusta) - The original Christmas tree in Pōneke with spectacular scarlet blooms is the tallest tree of all Ōtari Wilton Bush and measures 56m tall! 
• Pōhutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) - The most popular street tree in our capital city (more than 40%) which is susceptible to Myrtle rust famously flowers at Christmas. This tree is native to the northern half of the motu from Taranaki and Tairāwhiti north.  
• Porokaiwhiri (Hedycarya arborea) or pigeonwood is flowering spectacularly this year and has fruit ripening this year. Watch out for the star like flowers on the track and Jaffa fruit on trees which are a favourite of kererū (it’s easy to see their bright orange poop!)  
• Harakeke (Phormium tenax) - korari/flower spikes emerge over summer and are a favourite of tūī, kākā and korimako. This tāonga is prized for raranga/weaving.  
• Tī kōuka (Corydline australis) or cabbage tree is flowering heavily this year which is a tōhu or sign of a dry summer ahead. On a calm day, pause to smell the sweet fragrance.  
• Mānuka (Leptospermum scoparium) is a favourite of honeybees, but strangely it is not common in Pōneke due to the prevalence of māhoe regeneration through gorse. Colin MCahon famously wrote “Manuka in bloom breeds despair”, which speaks of the toil of settler farmers to maintain grazing. Now it is a prized resource for its precious honey.  
• Hīnau (Eleaocarpus dentatus) - moniker of the Lambton Ward, Pukehīnau is the original name of the hill we call Kelburn today. Hīnau flowers look like white fairy dresses, or confetti.  
• Rengarenga (Arthropodium spp.) - this plant’s brilliant white sprays are the best replacement for the Agapanthus weed which is very difficult to control.  
• Pīngao (Ficinia spiralis) also known as Tane’s eyebrows, this plant is critical in forming sand dunes which protect our coastline from storm events and are adapted to quickly reform dunes by catching windblown sand. Check them out at Lyall Bay.  
• Raupōtaranga (Xeronema callestemon) - its brilliant red flowers are brush-like blooms protruding from a mass of green sword, a handsome addition to any garden or patio. It does best in pots and can take years to produce its first flowers.