Colonial Gardening

View from a New Zealand Patio

The other week one of my British gardening friends (Vic in Sussex) asked me to write a small piece about gardening in New Zealand. Seems an easy enough thing to do, but there's a small matter of the colonial inferiority complex. Down under usually implies lower in rank, unless it's Australia and cricket, but that's another story.

It's been great for my confidence to meet a British gardener (Vic) who is relatively unsystematic. I've always imagined that grey British winters would force a gardener indoors, writing detailed lists, creating seasonal plans and growth charts, totally prepared for anything the spring, summer, and autumn bring. Colonial gardeners, out in the garden all year round, could be forgiven for their lack of organisation. Finding enough things to do in the glass-house when it's raining is our only problem.

The bi-coloured rose Masquerade

New Zealand Style

I wouldn't want anyone to think that New Zealand gardeners have no style at all. We have rhododendron festivals in spring. We grow delphiniums (except I've just ripped out all my blue beauties - they have no idea of wind survival). The big glossy Ellerslie Flower Show in November tries to rival its English counterparts, supposedly with a noticeable Pacific colonial designer style. We try really hard with our elegant rusting corrugated iron fences and pots of black taro. We're still going potty over David Austin's English roses - never mind that they all end up spread-eagled, spotty and lanky, with the demeanour of American basketballers.

All New Zealand gardeners garden with the wind. Shelter belts in country gardens like mine protect the home, garden, and stock, and are a fact of life. There is no place for false snobbery concerning rows of Leyland Cypresses. The wind blows nearly every day, tickling the flaxes and tussocks in sensible garden designs and shredding the Japanese maples in others.

Blowing in the Wind

There is a wind from every compass direction to blow down the delphiniums and foxgloves. Favourite country trees like Eucalypts are coyly said to be self-pruning. In my garden the Wattle Woods (a tranquil place of mottled greenery and gently winding paths) become a hard hat area when the Norwester blows. The big gum trees near the house create the ambience of a down-town bus depot when these winds are strong - it becomes too noisy to think, let alone talk.

Gunnera and bronze flax

Allotment gardening is rare, since the tradition in New Zealand has been for many years to own one's home and a quarter acre of land. Both urban and rural gardens are built around the house, with courtyards, barbecues, decking and green plastic outdoor dining suites. We all cherish our garden sheds. Some country colonials, like myself, have more than one (I have a pump-house, a hen house, and a glass-house). These are cherished, used, and much photographed for their rough rustic charm. They are creative spaces filled with tinkering and pottering in Spring and Autumn, and flies (often immigrants who have blown in from Australia) in Summer.

The pump-house

The pump-house has one big pump for paddock irrigation and a smaller garden pump for sneaky garden watering sessions. Seedlings are started smugly in unheated midwinter spaces. Only the pelargoniums and the daisies are frost victims and need to be over-wintered.

Vegetables in Vogue

We don't do vegetables very well, though. Stylish city gardeners can be seen experimenting with Vietnamese mints in terracotta pots. There are cutting edge potagers complete with purple beans and heirloom tomatoes all colours of the rainbow, but I've only seen them in the glossy gardening magazines. There are a few wigwams of sweet peas from the mother country, hidden in back gardens near the clothes line.

Toe Toe in a mixed border

Gourmet Lettuces for the Girls

Tomatoes, potatoes and peas are still the traditional bloke crops, while girly gardeners grow the gourmet lettuces. Vege table gardens start off as cultural melting pots of global edibles, and end up in the summer sun full of colourful lettuce trees and voluptuous oversized marrows. Well, some gardener's vegetable gardens do!

Hellebores Under the Gum Trees

Because of our isolation we snub the conventions. We grow Hellebores beneath the gum trees. Alas, they are not incredibly happy Hellebores, but such is life.

Red and green Cabbage trees flourish surrounded by roses and penstemons. We think we are decades ahead of the times as regards gardening with grasses. We do grasses really well.

Toe Toes and tussocks of every size, colour, and form have always been popular (and cheap). Toe Toe plumes are spectacular waving in the wind - and New Zealand is a rather windy island. Our hybrid flaxes are fully hardy here - and spectacular when in flower (and cheap).

They also attract native nectar-drinking birds, thus proving we are environmentally aware as well as having a natural pride in our home-grown flora. Ha!

Irises and Flax

Pacific Perceptions

But it's all a matter of perception. Any New Zealand coffee table gardening glossy will talk of a discernible Pacifika style. When I wander outside and look around my garden I'm just not so sure. Seems that for all the bravado, it's just a bit of a mess.

Digging Out the Delphiniums

I need to take action. So I'm going to dig out my delicate bridesmaid's dress mauve delphiniums and relocate them on the fence (next to the Hellebores) under the gums. The wind wins again!