25 Aug 2023

Clean-up a pleasant surprise for Hawkes Bay apple grower

From Country Life, 7:19 pm on 25 August 2023
Tree debris piled high on the Wilson family orchard after Cyclone Gabrielle. It bowled over apple trees.

Tree debris piled high on the Wilson family orchard after Cyclone Gabrielle. It bowled over apple trees. Photo: Lesley Wilson

Country Life's guest this week is possibly looking forward more than most to budburst on her apple trees.

We first met Lesley Wilson the week of Cyclone Gabrielle during a walk through the family's silt-laden orchard in Hawke's Bay's Puketapu area.

Enormous logs had crashed through the stop bank and bowled over most of their apple trees just on harvest time and they lost their home amidst it all.

But a lot has happened in the past six months.