Love (and a garden) in a Warm Climate

Our daughter Elizabeth has a garden at Lyttleton on the South Island of New Zealand.

It is an overused word, but her garden really is ' lovely'

 

Lyttleton is a quirky village ....lots of old characterful wooden houses, arranged around the slopes of a volcanic harbour.  At the bottom of the hill is the port for Christchurch.
The busy Port and the comings and goings of container ships and ferries make Lyttelton a real lively place.

Lizzy's garden is a real cottage garden in all senses, though without livestock as yet.

She has bowers of roses and native plants side by side, and beds of annuals and old fashioned flowers like columbines next to lush rows of potatoes and beds of silver beet and kale.  Leeks and many coloured lettuce and fruit bushes backing up and filling border gaps.

 

If Lizzy has learnt anything from her nurserymen parents, it is to feed and to make compost, both of which she does.

 

New Zealand is blessed with warm summers and mild winters, but with enough of a chill in the winter to ensure the plants have a real rest season and know where they are.

Elizabeth has also learnt our love of annuals and the garden is hence ensured of pots of summer colour - cornflowers, pot marigold, cosmos, and lots of sweet peas.

 

And here and there are the native plants, flax, southern beech, ake-ake.  All happy and thriving and full of birds in the early morning and late afternoon. You have to love the liquid notes of the bell birds and the fantails, along side naturalised European birds, the yellowhammers and goldfinches and black birds.

She has to water a lot with the dry New Zealand winds and strong strong sunlight. This will become less as she builds up the humus and fertility in the soil.
 

Whilst deadheading in Lizzy's garden today, It struck me that it is the job of every gardener to pass on their soil in better condition than they found it.  Viva la compost!
 

MD Lyttelton.  January 2013

A freshly planted border of annuals

'Planting for Colour - Annuals' - That was the title of my talk and demonstration last week in the latest RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) event at Abriachan.

Driveway annual border - Summer 2010

We looked at an annual border first.
This is the headland area near to the road and our aim is always to have a blaze of colour from July onwards. I reckon we have succeeded every one of the past 25 years to do that; sometimes the rain has damped the show and sometimes the sun has accelerated it.  All good fun and I wish I wish I wish I had taken a chronological record of things, but it is patchy.
In truth the border is becoming a bit of an annual and perennial mix, as over the years we have gradually planted some plants that have surprised us and become perennial and other edging plants are cheekily encroaching on to the plot.
Here are the principles I use:
* First and always, I plant three Scot’s Thistle, Onopordum acanthemum. This is for drama and the photo opportunities. Onopordum is a biennial, hence they will make a large silver rosette in this first year and then will shoot up to flower with their fabulous purple thistle heads next spring.

  * Then I think about colour and drama and reach for Dahlias. Each year I try a new variety and this year it is a red double called Murdoch. The others I use a lot are

o Arabian Nights - A tall rich red double.
o Moonfire - Apricot yellow single , ted centre; dark foliage
o Bishop of Llandaff - Vivid red double on dark foliage.
* Then height and strength. No staking here. I usually go for Nicotiana, the tobacco plants. My favourite is Nicotiana affinis, but just as good is Nicotiana sylvestris, which has whorls of white flowers. Avoid the dwarfed hybrids like Domino…no bottle.

* Then more tall and filling…and always I reach for Cosmos Sensation. Feathery foliage and substantial pink and purple flowers.  It also shoots away fast, I only like to weed that corner once before the foliage grows over.
* Then the middle height. To contrast and compliment the Dahlias, Rudbeckia bulks up and gives an excellent late show.
* Then at a lower height about 25cm, my favourite is annual barley grass Hordeum jubatum and Opium poppies,  imagine them dancing in the breeze.

* Calendula, ordinary Pot Marigold Orange King is excellent and weather proof. If it looks like yet another cool wet summer, I can guarantee a show with these.
* Covering the edges; White Bacopa , Bidens or Sanvitalia are excellent and I have used trailing Lobelia Sapphire. All good and pretty edge frills .
* Filling spaces …..And there always seems to be a few, Tagetes, Cornflower, Night scented stock. Lovely

I hope everyone walking up from the road will stop and stare, and enjoy that corner as much as I do.

To end, here are my best annuals to plant this summer of uncertain weather. …still time.
Sow in June plant out in July enjoy from late August to November and even Christmas.
1. Tagetes… long season and utterly reliable.
2. Cosmos Sensation…the others don’t cut the mustard
3. Rudbeckia.... I like the tall ones, give a long late seaso, try to find Irish Eyes
4. Pot Marigold... well fed this gives a great show.
5. Parsley…..yes curly leaf parsley, strictly a biennial, but it is the most vivid green you can get and a wonderful contrast to marigold orange.

MD Abriachan June 2012