Snowdrops on a hillside
It is our interest in what we call “romantic gardening” – others refer to it as “naturalistic gardening” – that we derive as much, if not more pleasure from plants naturalised in meadow conditions as we do from cultivated, tightly maintained garden beds. It is a blurring of the edges in gardening, exploring how far we can replicate the simple charm of wildflowers but in a managed situation.
Lachenalia aloides and grape hyacinths (muscari) at the base of Pinus muricata
It is not as easy as it sounds. Many of the charming bulbs in their natural environment have conditions which are much harsher than here. Winters that are very cold and often dry mean that most growth stops, as do summers that are hot and dry. But in our dairy-farming heartland, soft conditions keep grass growing all year round and that growth will simply swamp most bulbs. It has taken us some years to learn to manage this. Selecting bulbs that will cope in our conditions has been trial and error.
Bluebells and hooped petticoats (Narcissus bulbocodium) planted at the base of a eucalypt
It also takes eleventy thousand more bulbs than you think it will. Even bulk buying a couple of hundred bulbs is not going to create much of a carpet in the short term. To get a quick result using large bulbs like daffodils or bluebells, planting at one every 10 square centimetres means 100 per square metre. I worked this out because I was planting a little mixed area. Using dainties like erythroniums, dwarf daffodils, snowdrops, crocus and rhodohypoxis, it took about 4 of these small bulbs per 10 square centimetres – or 400 per square metre. That is a large number and may explain why we don’t see many bulb meadows in this country, beyond well established fields of daffodils dating back many decades. Obviously, if you plant at greater spacings, you can cover a larger area but you will wait longer for the carpet effect.
Colchicum autumnale flowering at the base of a metasequoia
While planting around tree trunks is not the same thing as naturalising bulbs in a meadow situation, it proved to be a good place to start for us. We have many trees in fairly open situations where it is possible to establish easy bulbs beneath. Most bulbs need sun so these need to be trees with a higher canopy to allow light below. Planting amongst the exposed roots of established trees ensures the bulbs don’t get mown off or trampled as they surface and generally they get established with little competition. It is also an effective way of controlling some of the invasive bulbs like ipheions and ornamental oxalis.
Scattering seed is hit and miss and slower to give any results but much easier. We were delighted this year to see Cyclamen hederafolium showing its colours where Mark had scattered fresh seed several years ago. He had given up hope that it would work but lo, there are rewards for patient gardeners and the older we get, the more patience we seem to be developing.
Bluebells planted on the margins, drifting through our park area
The triumph of experience has been getting grassy banks with dwarf narcissi and snowdrops naturalised. To do this, Mark spent some years establishing the native grass, microlina. It is finer and less vigorous so doesn’t swamp the bulbs and can be controlled with minimal cutting – just a pass over with the weedeater from time to time. It is not quite the same as a bulb meadow, but we have learned to work with what we have here.
Carrying a tray of Nerine pudica, in case you are wondering (which I admit I planted in the rockery, not in meadows)
First published in the July issue of New Zealand Gardener and reprinted here with their permission.
Finally today, I headed out into the chill to find the white evergreen azaleas, the very first of the new season’s michelias (deliciously fragrant) and white hellebores. By this time, I found my eyes being drawn to colour and red blooms were demanding my attention. I would find a monochromatic garden soon palled but the colours will have to wait for another day as I end with the simple perfection of Camellia Superstar below.
I have a new camera and while I am still learning to use it, I doubt that I could have captured the monarchs on the montanoa with my old one, even before it decided to shuffle off the mortal coils and go where digital cameras go to die. 
It was a comment left on this site that had me heading down to check out the montanoa on a sunny mid-winter’s day, to find it positively dancing with monarch butterflies. “It’s a natural food source for monarch butterflies, as it also comes from Mexico”, the reader said. Given that monarchs are recorded as self-introducing to this country around 1840 and generally produce two generations a year, that means at least 350 generations have passed since the Mexican connection so I think the montanoa is perhaps better described as being an “indigenous food source for monarch butterflies in Mexico”. But a source of winter nectar, it certainly is. It was a joy to see. 
I was so discouraged when I left the scene of institutional and bureaucratic vandalism that was the 
And at home I raised my eyes upwards to drink in the sights of our trees. We have many large trees here, evergreen and deciduous, native and introduced. While by no means the largest of our trees, this scene of magnolias, silver birch and Queen Palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) soothed my soul.
Maybe it was our national cricket team playing in Yorkshire that brought this scene back to mind. I photographed it at Yorkshire Lavender near Terrington, about this time last year. I was greatly charmed at the time. It was set on top of a small hill with a big sky and big vistas. I admit I like cricket – well, I like it when our team is winning and they did win the test match a few weeks ago – but it was the large scale whimsy that I appreciated with this scene.
I like lavender. I really enjoy the open fields of lavender which are so evocative of a different climate. It is not a plant for our fertile conditions with high humidity and high rainfall all year round. I have just one plant left and it lurches on from year to year, clutching at the remnants of its life. I liked the way Yorkshire Lavender didn’t just keep to lavender but were extending into the New Perennial style as well with their mixed plantings and the mandatory grasses.
Persimmons. These are a glorious sight in autumn but more decorative than useful here. Ours is an old astringent variety – mouth-puckeringly so until it is super ripe and then I really only like the jelly-like centre segments. We don’t eat many of them. I tried buying the fruit of the non-astringent recent introductions, which can be eaten at the crisp stage like an apple. I was a little underwhelmed – I preferred apples.
I recently read that persimmon fruit dry well and even the astringent types can be picked before fully ripe, sliced and dried and they will lose their astringency. Truly, we were very sceptical. But it works. It really does. The first batch I sliced, skin and all, and dried on a rack over our woodburner. It was a bit hot for them and the skin was a little tough. This second batch I used a sharp knife to remove the skin – which wasn’t difficult – and then sliced and put in the oven on fan bake at a very low temperature for several hours. They aren’t fully dried so I will store them in small packages in the deep freeze lest they go mouldy in our humid climate.
If you like dried fruit or eat muesli, they will make an excellent addition. I plan on using them as a substitute for dried apricots. They don’t taste the same but they will fill the same role. As with any dried food, they shrivel away to very little. I doubt that my forays into dried persimmons are going to make much of an inroad to our total crop – I won’t be drying hundreds of them and there is a large crop on the tree. But we are always interested in adding variety to our diet and dried persimmons take little effort to utilise a crop that we would otherwise waste. 
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 