Breaking the Mould of the Modern New Zealand Garden – the Dreams at Paloma

The combination of foliage and colours brings life to the Bamboo Forest

The combination of foliage and colours brings life to the Bamboo Forest

I wrote in my last column about the brave and grand visions of Bob Cherry in Australia. I recently revisited another garden which never fails to surprise me and it is considerably closer to home. Paloma is Clive and Nicki Higgie’s creation at Fordell, just on the other side of Wanganui. It, too, takes in a sweeping vision on a scale which is not common. It is not a pretty garden in the accepted sense. I can’t recall seeing any roses there. There is a distinct lack of frothing perennials. I think I am on safe ground when I say that there are no clipped buxus hedges defining the spaces. In fact, Paloma has avoided pretty much all of the modern clichés of good gardening. But it is an outstanding garden.

Beginning with a blank canvas but reasonably extensive land with interesting contours (they are farmers), Clive and Nicki started by sourcing pretty much every interesting plant they could find back a decade or three when specialist nurseries still existed. They lean to the exotic plant side from preference. So from the start, palms, cycads, large, tree-like succulents, rare trees and bamboo dominated but the plant collection has gone way beyond those families. They were certainly pushing the boundaries of what could be grown in their climate right from the start but, as plants mature, micro climates change and the tender plant material looks completely at home these days.

The Garden of Death - social history and toxic plants, not a memorial

The Garden of Death - social history and toxic plants, not a memorial

When you are building plant collections from the start, it is natural to group families of plants in the situation that best suits them. With the passage of time, those groupings mature to different themed areas but it takes advanced skills to turn those collections into a garden. The owners in this case describe the garden as having distinct zones which include the well established Palm Garden (a very good collection of palms), the Jardin Exotique (a strong Mediterrranean influence, named for Nicki’s French heritage), the remarkable Bamboo Forests and two arboreta. I am not even going to try and draw a word picture of this expansive garden. It is an ongoing project but, being in distinct zones and project-based, it does not fall into the rambling but-wait-there-is-more trap of some large gardens.

The recent Desert House project

The recent Desert House project

The large desert house is a new installation, made necessary by the gift of a huge collection of well established cacti and succulents. A traditional earth labyrinth (dug by hand) is nearing completion. Clive is having a great deal of fun building the new Garden of Death. This is not to be confused with a pet graveyard. Rather, it is a unique environment for another themed plant collection which is focussed on poisonous plants and their social histories. With a touch of whimsy, they refer to it as the GoD garden.

It is that sense of whimsy which gives Paloma its special character. Those of us who count Clive as a friend tend to be in awe of his productivity and his wide range of practical skills. This is not a garden where money is spent bringing in outside contractors and tradesmen. Clive must be the ultimate D.I.Y. man, the epitome of that New Zealand ethos. But this is not about cobbling together a walkway or putting in a bit of retaining wall. He builds. He welds. He creates. In the early days of making the garden, those creative energies were primarily directed into projects using the plants. These days the bulk of the planting is done, although the arboreta are ongoing projects. An arboretum, by the way, is a deliberate collection of different trees (not to be confused with a forest or a plantation) and, being Latin, the singular is arboretum but only the determined and the fortunate have the plural of arboreta. Garden maintenance is always necessary but it is hardly creative so I would guess that the creative instincts have found new direction in sculptural installations and building. There are neither classical repro statues nor kitset octagonal summerhouses here. Paloma is characterised by one-off originals, at times combined with strong colour, occasionally provocative, often quirky.

Wit and whimsy on arrival at Paloma

Wit and whimsy on arrival at Paloma

If you only enjoy visiting gardens that look like your own, you may find Paloma disconcerting from the moment of arrival at the simple board fence which has been transformed with whimsical writing. But if you like the challenge of being stimulated rather than soothed on a garden visit, the multiple layers and complexity of this garden environment will be a surprise. I do like a garden where you can’t take it all in on the first visit.

Paloma is not a seasonal garden in the usual manner so there is no single best time to visit. For more information, check out their website (www.paloma.co.nz) , email them (paloma@paloma.co.nz) or phone 06 342 7857.

Turning plant collections into a garden - Paloma

Turning plant collections into a garden - Paloma

Plant Collector – Taxodium ascendans "Nutans"

A blaze of autumn colour on Taxodium ascendans "Nutans"

A blaze of autumn colour on Taxodium ascendans "Nutans"


Nubbly knees

Nubbly knees

We will take spot autumn colour where we can get it here. Big mass displays of fiery autumn shades are more typical of drier, less windy climates with sharp seasonal change (hotter summers and colder winters) and predominantly deciduous native flora. Think the maples of Canada. But this taxodium puts on a splendid orange display. It is a conifer, believe it or not, and yes there are a few deciduous conifers. This one comes from the south east of USA and makes a handsome, columnar tree with short branches, a little upwardly curved. Our tree is about 10 metres high after 40 years. It is notable also for its ability to grow in waterlogged conditions, as will its close relative the swamp cypress or Taxodium distichum. Taxodiums are also renowned, along with a few other swamp trees, for pushing up nubbly protruberances above ground. Attached to the roots, these are commonly referred to as knees and you certainly can not mow beneath these trees. Apparently the knees only appear when they are growing in wet conditions – this tree is by a stream- but it remains unproven why these growths occur.

In the garden this week: May 6, 2011

• Get green crops sown urgently in bare areas of the vegetable garden. You are running out of time for the seeds to germinate and start growing before winter slows all growth.

• Finish the autumn feeding round as a priority. There is no point in feeding plants which have stopped growing for winter but we still have a little warmth left before the full blast of winter returns to stay.

• Make the final cuts to the root balls of large plants you plan to move soon. You should have cut the first two sides some weeks ago. Cut the other two sides and beneath the plant and leave it to rest for another week or two before moving it. You can move quite substantial plants as long as you have enough combined physical strength (or mechanical equipment) to take a very large root mass with it. Prepare the new location in advance so when you come to do the move, the plant is not left with its roots exposed to drying winds or light for long.

• It is the very last chance to sow seed of quick maturing green vegetables such as mizuna and other Asian greens, spinach and winter lettuce if you are to ensure continued supply through the colder times.

• As winter looms, sowing microgreens in seed trays can be a quick and nutritious harvest, especially if you have a glasshouse, conservatory or large eaves to protect the germinating seeds and to lift the temperature. Pretty well any and every vegetable can be eaten as a microgreen which is when the first half dozen young and tender leaves appear. BBC Gardeners’ World was recommending it as a great way to use up leftover seeds remaining in open packets from last year which seemed sensible.

• The grass seed should be calling you if you still have bare areas to sow. You will get better results if you do it immediately rather than in the depths of winter.

• The very large stinky plant shown on our newspaper’s garden pages last week was in fact the Titan Arum by common name (or Amorphophallus titanum, to be more botanically correct). It has one of the largest flowers in the world and smells so revolting because it relies on tricking beetles and flies that usually feed on rotting meat in order to be pollinated.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 29 April, 2011

A somewhat over the top performance from just one Cyclamen hederafolium tuber, albeit a large and well established one

A somewhat over the top performance from just one Cyclamen hederafolium tuber, albeit a large and well established one

Latest posts: Friday April 29, 2011.
1) The voluptuous splendour of Vireya rhododendron Rio Rita in Plant Collector this week.
2) Garden tasks for the week including autumn pruning and getting garlic in early.
3) Outdoor Classroom this week looks at hard pruning large, scruffy camellia bushes.

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday, May 1, 2011
Another weather bomb last week (as we seem to call extreme weather events these days) had people drawing comparisons to the infamous Cyclone Bola of 23 years ago (I can date Bola because it coincided with the birth of our son) but it was not of that magnitude here. Still, tearing winds for two days blew over pretty well every plant in the nursery, snapped a large branch off a prunus which blocked half the road (surprising how long it took for anybody to tell us that our vegetation was a traffic hazard!), snapped a large branch from one of our old man pine trees and generally dislodged anything that was loose. A friend down the coast tells me it wrecked about 20 trees in his garden so we are guessing it was worse elsewhere. Now we are into clean up mode but calm, clear weather has returned. There is not a lot of autumn colour remaining after the winds, but the Cyclamen hederafolium continue to flower. This particular tuber is undeniably large but its production of blooms is so excessive that we have been making jokes about it being on steroids. There is no human intervention, however. It is just hellbent on outdoing every other cyclamen in the garden.

Plant Collector: Vireya Rhododendron Rio Rita

Large, luscious and fragrant - vireya Rio Rita

Large, luscious and fragrant - vireya Rio Rita

Rio Rita was bred by the late Os Blumhardt, one of this country’s foremost plantsmen and plant breeders in his time. It was named for the irrepressible Rita Watson and it always makes us smile because the flower is so well suited to the bold personality and immaculate grooming of the namesake. Rita was very keen on vireya rhododendrons and her North Shore garden boasted some of the best grown plants we have ever seen in a garden situation though we were told she subsequently gave up growing vireyas and took up line dancing instead. Rio Rita is a leucogigas hybrid (crossed with Dr Sleumer) and the flowers are voluptuous and fragrant. There are five flowers to a truss and this photograph is of two trusses side by side, which is why it looks quite so full. Each flower is about 10 cm across, which is large.

Most vireyas don’t have a set flowering season because they come from the equatorial areas where day and night length is pretty much the same all year. This means you can have some in flower all the time if you have sufficient plants and different varieties. However, they won’t tolerate more than a degree or two of frost and wet feet will kill them very quickly. As a guide, the bigger and more lusciously fragrant the flowers are and the larger the leaves, the more susceptible they will be to cold temperatures and less than ideal conditions. This means that Rio Rita is by no means the easiest vireya to grow well, let alone keep alive at all, but if you have the right conditions, it certainly puts on a show.