The New Shrubbery

The Shrubbery - note the upper case letters - is a totally new garden area at Mooseys. The space was created by default when a huge pine tree blew down in a storm. Shrubs, roses, paths, a stone retaining wall, even a little sunken courtyard - The Shrubbery has it all!

This was my grand project during a fortnight when Non-Gardening Partner was overseas. There was quite a bit of land sculpting required, and he might have put me off by mentioning scary engineering words - like 'drainage' and 'subsidence'. But blessed are the naive, for sometimes they slowly do get it right!

The front of The Shrubbery sits behind a stone retaining wall, in-filled with compost, manure, ash, and assorted organic matter. The plantings were shamelessly budget. I wanted a lightness of leaf colour, as well as some spikes - and of course a few rugged roses.

Golden Foliage

Golden variegated Corokias and upright Flaxes with similar colouring were planted. Then I chose clean green Hebes (Emerald Gem), and filled the gaps with my ubiquitous green coarse-leafed Carex, a tough ornamental grass

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The back of the Shrubbery followed, as I pushed a pathway adventurously into the Hump to the row of gum trees. This area is still developing, but is designed to be easy-care maintenance, with newspaper and mulch laid to suppress the weeds. All the shrubs are my favourite tough New Zealand natives - dusky Corokias, Ake Ake and Pittosporums, Flaxes and Cordylines.

Pink and Flowery

There are a few feminine pink touches - a Madame Leonie de Viennot rose sprawls over and along an old sheep fence, and a cluster of fluffy Pink Grootendorsts (rugosas with attitude) liven up the lawn edge. And the Shrubbery has a fair selection of flowery plants, too.

Rosemary and Thyme...

The little square sunken courtyard is 'edged' with trailing Rosemary. An assortment of Thymes, Dianthus plants, pansies, and other ground-huggers drape themselves over the stones of the retaining wall. Anthemis has been spectacular flowering on the edge of the stone wall for months, and there's even a rogue red dahlia in the middle! Shrubberies need colour on the ground as well as on the shrubs!

There are just a couple of trees - both the prettiest of specimens, which hopefully will like it here and grow well. One is my Esk Sunset No. 2, moved in from a less sheltered spot, and the other a juvenile purple Cotinus - a shrub-tree that I adore. Both will provide lovely summer shade when they get growing! Further back into the Hump there are Pittosporums, mature Cordylines, Ake Ake and Viburnums - and a lone Silver Birch. Hi-yo Silver!

Springtime is catered for with clumps of daffodil and tulip bulbs on the stone wall egde and along the paths. Very pretty!