The evolution of a garden

One of the privileges of taking over a family garden is being able to trace it down the decades and watching how the garden grows and changes over time. In sorting out Mark’s parents’ slide images, I found snapshots in time that I had not seen before.

We can date this aerial black and white photo of the property to the early to mid 1950s. The house (marked with the red arrow) was built around 1950 to 1951 and key areas of the garden had yet to be laid out. The red rectangle is the area we refer to as ‘the park’ – then a sheep paddock of about 4 acres or 1.6 hectares on a south facing slope. Here, in the antipodes, south facing means it is on the cold side. Mark once studied the original, large format photo with a magnifying glass and declared that he could spot patches where his father had sprayed out the grass in preparation for planting.

This image is undated but is one of the earliest we have after planting started. That is a lot of top quality trees and shrubs going in. I can’t remember who told me that the planting was guided by the principles of the Rhododendron Association at the time; it may even have been Felix. The plants were not grouped but individually placed so that each one could be viewed in solitary splendour from any angle. Plants grow quickly in our mild, warm temperate climate with volcanic soils, regular rainfall and high sunshine hours.

This slide was dated 1962. That is Mark’s older brother on the horse but he was only riding through. Rhododendrons in particular are toxic to stock and so are other ornamental trees like yews. Felix maintained the area by grazing a very small group of sheep in amongst the trees and shrubs. He kept to the same sheep because they learned quickly which plants made them ill and they avoided them from then on.

The park really didn’t change a great deal over the next 30 years, until a somewhat younger Mark unleashed himself in 1995. There was always a problem with flooding in the low-lying areas and rhododendrons hate having wet feet. The evergreen azaleas are more tolerant but it was an ongoing issue. Mark’s tidy grandfather, Felix’s father, Bertrum Jury had straightened the stream to run at right angles on the property to maximise grazing areas. That was around 1900. Every time it rained heavily, the park flooded and there were no natural drainage channels left.

Mark’s efforts were major. That is our bottom road boundary. Grandfather Bertrum’s stream channel was deepened and turned into a flood channel controlled by a simple weir. Before anybody asks, yes he was Bertrum Jury, not Bertram or Bertrand. Flexible spelling is not recent.

The largest flow of water was directed back through the park, opening up the original stream bed. Mark had calculated its likely route and felt vindicated when the digger excavated tree trunks and debris that had been used to fill the old stream bed when it had been closed off.

The resulting clean-up was huge. The amount of silt and clay stacked up by the channel needed to be moved because it would set like concrete and smother the roots of trees that were already deemed precious. It was winter, probably before the days of bob-cat machines and all that gluggy mess had to removed by hand because it was too wet and the spaces too tight to get machinery in. I remember Mark coming in for months on end – dog-tired and covered in mud. He hauled barrow loads to upper slopes to build tracks – one person pushing the barrow and another on a rope pulling because they were too heavy for one person. It was a pretty grim winter activity and only dogged determination got Mark through. To this day, he swears it stuffed his back.

But look! Within just one season, by late spring the scars of the earthworks were already healing and we had flowing water where before there was soggy bog. These are still 1995.

Around this time, we bought our first fancy-pants lawnmower that cost more than our car did but was capable of mowing the varied terrain in the park and maintaining stability while manoeuvring around innumerable plants. Between that and the new weedeater or strimmer, we entered the era when we maintained the area to a standard that would have satisfied even public parks and gardens. Very, very tidy, we were, with neatly mown grass.

Mark then set about turning what had been plants standing in solitary splendour in a glorified paddock into more of a cohesive garden. He also started planting – bulbs and even perennial beds on a shady slope. The bulbs have worked well, especially the narcissi and galanthus. Mark went to some trouble to establish our native microlaena grass in some areas, as a replacement for paddock grass. Its finer foliage and gentler growth is much more compatible with dainty bulbs. 25 years on, we now have swathes of spring bulbs, rather than a few patches.

Around 2010, we started thinking there had to be a better way of managing the park. Keeping it mown and neat was not only labour intensive but we were increasingly concerned by our heavy dependence on petrol-powered motors. Enter the meadow era. We looked closely at meadows, particularly in the UK, and worked out that our situation was very different and we would have to manage it in different ways. Quite a lot of thought and discussion took place before we took the plunge.

We have not regretted it. The mown park may have looked impressive but the meadow is full of soft-edged charm that delights us all the time. I have written before about how we manage it. We mow walking paths through and twice a year we cut the entire area of grass to the ground – in mid summer and again in mid winter. We don’t remove the grass because that would be too big a job. Nor do we have yellow rattle in this country to weaken the growth. We have grass growth all year round; it is why this is good dairy farming country. We had to adjust to a meadow with rampant grass growth. We work to keep out noxious weeds like thistles, tradescantia that washes down the stream from above and onion weed but we have learned to tolerate our buttercups and even the docks. They are part of what makes a meadow in our conditions.

The park continues to develop. The latest two areas are our gardener Zach’s efforts. The upper photo – an area we refer to as The Barricades – was a creative means to deal with waste wood after Cyclone Dovi. Rather than burning it on site, it has been carefully arranged by Zach to create an environment for more planting – mostly orchids and ferns. It will gently moulder away and return to the earth, as indeed we hope to ourselves.

The Accidental Rockery, as Zach calls it, was his solution to retaining a bank that needed some attention by one of the paths down the hill. It wasn’t planned as a new planting area but that was a bonus to moving in rocks to retain the soil. It has filled out a lot since I took this photo soon after it emerged from his efforts.

Back to earlier days, I think this image is mid 1960s and that is Mark’s mother, Mimosa, standing by the azaleas. I looked at this photo and thought, maybe we have just gone full cycle. Is that soft-edged scene with a mown path so very different to where we have ended up now, 65 years on?

From an earlier era

The marquee displays at the 1960 Chelsea Flower Show

I had told myself for decades that one of these days. I will sort through the family slides. Not so much a day, it turned out, as a couple of weeks but I am close to the end.

Both Mark’s parents and Mark himself photographed on slide film in the days before digital cameras. It was always an expensive medium to work in, probably even more so in the days when slide films had to be sent to Australia to be developed. There were boxes and boxes and boxes of slides. Forty years of them.

Labelled ‘Captain and Mrs Ingram, Benenden’. Initially I assumed this must be from Felix’s trip to the UK a decade later, Captain Ingram being none other than renowned plant collector and ornithologist Collingwood “Cherry” Ingram. The photo is more Mimosa in style and Mark says he is pretty sure his mother visited the Ingrams on her tour.

I decided early on that I would scan and keep the historic images of the garden and the property and those of identifiable family members but the close-ups of flowers could all be discarded, as could random landscapes and events that meant something at the time but are of no discernible relevance now.

My task became a lot more interesting when I came to the slides that Mark’s mother, Mimosa, took and now I worry that I may have been too ruthless in my selection of those to scan and keep and those to discard.

Mimosa in front of the Papal Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican, 1960 photograph (not a slide in this case)

Mark’s mother only left the country once that I can see. But that one occasion was a big trip – Le Grand Tour, in fact. Mark has always been a bit vague on her absence, it being ‘quite a long trip’, he thought. I was a fair way through sorting the slides before I realised what a huge experience it must have been for her. She spent about two months voyaging there and back and five months exploring the UK, Italy, France, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Astilbes in the marquee at Chelsea
Astilbes and lilies
This display of roses was somewhat less than glorious but look at the serious garden visitors behind

It included the Chelsea Flower Show where she was clearly impressed by the marquee displays which were of the very highest standard. She didn’t take many photos of the outdoor gardens. It seems that the showpiece outdoor gardens have evolved quite a bit in the last 65 years. Perhaps they are more fashion-forward these days?

It would seem that the outdoor gardens had more to do glorious floral displays than design

I wanted to date her Chelsea visit and I can now say that it was indeed 1960, as I thought. We also happen to have the menu cards from the trip over and back. We forget how recent long-distance air travel is and how extraordinary it is that we can travel all the way across the world in just over 24 hours in the air. Mimosa sailed out of Aotearoa New Zealand just before Christmas 1959, on board the SS Australia, a long-distance passenger liner operated by the Italian company, Lloyd Triestino, with an Italian crew.

The large format covers for entertainment cards and the menus changed daily, clearly designed as souvenirs – and successful souvenirs in that we still have them!
A very Italian experience

This solved one mystery. I was a little surprised by this somewhat raunchy image until Mark and another both suggested it was related to ‘crossing the line’, ergo, the equator. I found the programme for the event. One wonders what form the 10.15am Discorso di Nettuno e battesimo deo neofiti took (Neptune’s speech and the baptism of the landlubbers) but it all happened on January 12, 1960. Those relatively uninhibited young men in the photo appear to be the Italian crew. The voyage terminated on January 27 at an Italian port, having travelled via the Suez Canal.

Rather more risque than the farm boys from Tikorangi that Mimosa would have known

It must all have been quite the culture shock for a middle-aged woman from Tikorangi but Mark tells me his mother prepared for it all by putting quite a lot of effort into teaching herself Italian. I am not at all sure how one would even plan a trip of that length, in pre-internet days but even more so as a woman travelling on her own with no prior experience. I doubt that she would wing it, as we have done, and she probably travelled with a great deal more luggage than we have ever taken.

The return voyage was likely less exotic, on board the R.M.S. Rangitane, owned by the New Zealand Shipping Company so it likely transited the Panama Canal which, according to my mother, was very dull compared to the Suez. She boarded the Rangitane on or about June 3, 1960 and they docked in NZ on July 6. The menu cards from this return voyage show a diet that was considerably less adventurous than on the Italian liner.

I loved this soft focus image from her visit to a seaside village in Cornwall. We stayed in a very similar fisherman’s cottage in St Mawes when we visited in 2009.

Mimosa was always interested in gardens but she mostly photographed landscapes and architecture. She had a good eye and, 65 years on, it was her people photographs that I found most delightful.  

A random shot, I assume, of Cornish locals, possibly inspired by the blue and red clothing composition. As Mark commented, these photos are all the more remarkable for the fact that with old cameras, the settings all had to be manually adjusted so she would have had to take a light reading with her light meter and then adjust for distance and focus as well. Photography was less spontaneous back then.

When the rainy weather sets in again, I will turn my attention to ordering the garden scenes that I have scanned in. It is interesting to see the earliest plantings and constructions and the various stages they have gone through in close to 75 years. It makes us realise yet again that a garden can never be frozen in time. Gardening is a dynamic response to a changing environment, in the longer term at least. Curated examples may appear here in due course.

From her visit to the Netherlands…. Clogs- dear. They are all wearing clogs.
Nothing to do with Mimosa’s grand tour, but this was probably my favourite of her images. It was labelled ‘Lou and Simon Urenui Domain Gala January ’67’
Or how about “Mr Ashton and his dog raising funds at the Wai-iti Life Saving Carnival”? The expression on the dog’s face is wonderful, if you are viewing on a large screen, as are the men wearing suits and ties at a beach carnival.

Our very own mountain daisy, the celmisia

The three species crosses resulted in broader leaves and silver colour all year round

Celmisias are our very own mountain daisies. They have never been a common garden plant because they aren’t easy in nursery production and rarely thrive in the average home garden. It is likely that their greatest fans are trampers and botanists but that should not blind us to their charm. Many people just don’t know of them. And I suppose, when you think about it, quite a lot of our native plants have white daisy flowers.

I was surprised when I looked them up and found a far greater number of species than I ever knew existed. Some dedicated botanists have clearly spent a lot of time unravelling this genus.

When Mark’s father, Felix, was still alive, he became very interested in seeing whether he could hybridise different species to get plants that would thrive in our lowland, humid conditions. Most celmisias are subalpine to alpine plants. I remember Felix and Mark heading up our maunga, Mount Taranaki, in search of the form which grows there naturally – Celmisia major var. brevis – and being thrilled to find some flower variations into pink. This was about 40 years ago, you understand, when people didn’t feel so bad about collecting plant material in a national park. They collected some plants, including a few of the pinks which they only saw growing in one area.

The first season after their relocation. I have moved them again because the grasses were overhanging them and these plants do not appreciate having to compete for space and light.

Felix set about crossing three species – C. coriacea which comes from Fiordland, C. hookeri  from the Otago area and the aforementioned C. major, in various combinations. Forty years on, we still have some of those hybrids growing and flowering in the garden here. It is the three way cross which gave us the broader leaves in distinctive silver all year round. Over the decades, we lost many of them, including all the pink ones, and have, at times, run close to losing the lot but for a bit of quick intervention. They have never seeded down for us; we have to increase them by division. They do set seed which we could gather and sow in seed trays but, in a busy gardening life, we don’t seem to get around to it. These are plants that need to be lifted and divided every few years or they rot out and fade away so we can never claim that they have naturalised here.

The area we refer to as ‘the grasslands’ when I first planted it in 2022 – one of the few celmisias to the right

When I planted my tawny brown area of two native carex grasses, C buchananii which is specific to our maunga and C. comans, I envisioned a simple breathing area of just those two plants. Mark looked at it and wanted more detail and colour. He suggested moving some of the celmisias which we were in danger of losing, into the newly cultivated area. So I did. There weren’t many left to play with. In the first year, I probably only had half a dozen divisions.  That was in 2022. It was like they breathed a sigh of relief and set about growing with renewed vigour. Last year I divided a few clumps that were large. This year, I divided most of them and I lost count around 58 or 60 plants. Some are small but they are surviving and I have done my best to give them optimal growing conditions. It was enormously satisfying. There aren’t many perennials I am willing to lavish such frequent and individualised care upon but the rewards feel worth it with the celmisias.

The same area in 2025 but now with the addition of 58, or it may be 60, celmisia plants

It is mighty hard to be original in a garden. Pretty much everything has been done before, some time, some place. I always scoff silently to myself when I hear the occasional gardener declare that somebody ‘stole their ideas’ or copied them. “But who influenced you in the first place?” I want to ask (but never do). However, I doubt that the celmisia and carex combination will be replicated soon, at least not locally. It is a successful subalpine planting in coastal, subtropical conditions and I am moderately chuffed by its unexpected nature in that context.

Te maunga, our mountain, Mount Taranaki, as I drove to town on Wednesday. The snow cover is abnormally light for mid-winter. There may be no more skiing days this season.

More ‘invisible gardening’.

Green waste is removed by the wool bale full – too much for my wheelbarrow .

I coined the description of ‘invisible gardening’ in recent times. It describes when I spend many hours, often days, working through every square metre of a section of garden with meticulous care, removing huge amounts of foliage and debris. All the while, I know that the only people who will notice are the four of us here because, after all that, it just looks tidier. No dramatic changes.

I didn’t think to take a before photo of this stretch but this is the after shot. It doesn’t look as though it has had two wool bales of green waste removed.

I am invisible gardening my way along the lower borders of the Avenue Gardens where it meets the park and the waste is coming out in packed wool bales to be composted elsewhere. So far, I am up to five full bales. I figured it is a reasonably high level gardening skill to pick over an area and remove that volume without making the place look denuded.

By the time I was onto the next path, Ralph and I remember the camera. This is BEFORE ….
… and AFTER another very full two bales of green waste was removed

I was trying to remember when I last gave this area the same level of close attention. It will be three to four years ago. In the interim, it has had the once over lightly treatment once or twice a year- a bit of weeding and removal of fallen debris and spent foliage, but nothing detailed. We don’t apply fertiliser; natural mulch provides nutrition. And we will only spot-spray if there is a problem that has got away on us. We never need to water.

BEFORE…
and AFTER. Spot the difference. It is a bit subtle, but believe me, a lot has been removed in the clean-up.

It started me thinking how long a garden lasts if you ignore it or just give it the occasional once-over-lightly attention. These are woodland gardens under a canopy that is largely evergreen, which slows growth and restricts weed germination. I came to the conclusion that after about three years, the area loses its definition. This is because plants are no longer standing in their own spaces but have melded together, enmeshed, so to speak. After about four years, the detail starts to go. We like highly detailed gardens – many different plants in varying combinations and a good representation of treasures. By four years, the thugs are taking over (I have removed A LOT of clivia seedlings) and the daintier plants have been squeezed out or swamped. From there, it is all downhill.

Halve the time estimates for sunny gardens. In those conditions, plants grow faster and the weed explosion can be exponential.

I am of the opinion that low maintenance and good gardening are mutually exclusive concepts. You can have one but probably not the other. If you want a lower maintenance garden, stick to shrubs and swathes of the same plant. We want detail and complexity and we live with the resulting maintenance demands. Besides, a couple of weeks every three years or so doesn’t seem oppressively high maintenance.

The meadow in late spring

For readers who have followed our experiments in sustainably managing the park as a meadow, Lloyd mowed it all down this last week in June. The areas too steep to mow, he cuts with the weed-eater or strimmer. The timing is important because the bluebells and narcissi are all coming through. We will mow again in late January. With our high fertility and rainfall, we have to cut it right down twice a year. Grass grows every week of the year here, just a bit slower in winter. If we didn’t mow as we do, we would soon lose all the bulbs, the irises and other perennial meadow plants.

An FCC, no less.

It is not every day that we hear the news that a Jury plant has been awarded an FCC – First Class Certificate – from the prestigious Royal Horticultural Society in the UK. In fact, it has never happened before. I remember, back in the days of writing plant descriptions for our catalogue, coming across the occasional FCC and being aware that it was prestigious but I had to seek clarification on the difference between an FCC and AGM (an award of garden merit, not to be confused with an annual general meeting). We have few Jury plants with AGMs, but not many.

Camellia ‘Mimosa Jury’

First class certificates are like the pinnacle of quality assessment – an award that is attached to that plant forever. Awards of garden merit can be bestowed and then, on occasion, taken away, being a recommendation by the RHS of top quality cultivars that perform well as garden plants in most situations. FCCs are quite a step above that.

It is Felix’s plant, not Mark’s, that has been honoured. Camellia ‘Mimosa Jury’ was named for his wife so we know both Felix and Mimosa rated it very highly. I see we first released it in 1989, some four years after Mimosa died. From our modest little nursery (very modest back then), it was distributed by others throughout the camellia world.

It is an exceptionally beautiful flower in the form that Felix particularly liked – described as ‘formal’ in form – in the prettiest shade of pink. It is not a big bloom like the highly rated ‘Desire’ or even ‘Queen Diana’ back in the day, but that makes it a better garden plant. And the FCC award recognises the merit of the overall plant, not a single show bloom.

Camellia ‘Mimosa Jury’, now recognised as one of the best but, sadly, no longer in our conditions

Sadly, camellia petal blight has robbed us of the once beautiful display in our conditions. None of the japonica, reticulata or hybrid camellias have escaped the scourge of petal blight which is particularly bad in our mild, humid climate. We haven’t planted a new camellia from those vulnerable groups in many years. Camellia petal blight has spread throughout the world; I am told it has now arrived in Australia which had managed to stay free from it for a long time. But it is not as devastating in other places, especially those with colder winters, lower rainfall and less humidity. Camellias in other places still perform and mass bloom in the manner we have not seen here for decades now.

It seems Camellia ‘Mimosa Jury’ is performing so well in the UK that it stands head and shoulders above most other camellias. Felix died 28 years ago but we will bask in the reflected glory on his behalf.

I don’t have many photos of Mark’s mother, Mimosa, from later in life. She died before the advent of digital cameras and existing photos are mostly studio shots from her younger days. Here she is, sitting in front of the house with early blooms of Magnolia ‘Atlas’, in the early 1980s.