Landscaping with New Zealand Native Plants

Seven years ago my husband and I started building our home on the side of a hill looking over the Hanmer Springs basin. A magnificent view of two rivers, mouintains, and farmland, we were very excited.

We had one previous experience having built a new Homestead on farming property many years previously. Here as far as the garden went, we were really starting from scratch.

Building our house took the best part of 18mths,and during that time we were busy thinking and deciding how we were going to landscape around the house.and what kind of trees and shrubs we would plant.We employed the services of a NZ landscape gardner from ChCh and he came up and made several suggestions, one of which was that we should plant only NZ Native plants, as they would blend in to the scenery, would grow well as this was their natural environment, and were relatively easy care. I took a while to accept this as I had always enjoyed gardening with deciduous trees and lots of flowers, but the more we thought about it the better the idea seemed to be, and we finally decide to go down that path. It is a decision we do not regret. As you can see in the photo the results have been stunning

The first job was to build a retaining wall at the back of the house, about a metre high,Bill made it out of posts,on the top af the wall we made a bed big enough to plant with tussock and native grasses--Carex flagellifera and Carex trifida. These New Zealand plants have colour all the year round and have attractive seed heads, easy to grow, they are hardy and tolerate dry and tough conditions.

There are also Angel's Fishing rod ( Sparaxis pulcherrima ) in late spring a impressive show of lovely white flowers with the long stem which gives them their common name.

On the back of the bank we planted a mixture of Natve flax--(Pormium tenax) Toe Toe (Cortaderia richardii) Koromiko (Hebe salicifolia) all these species are very hardy and have grown with no watering or fertilisers, just lots of weeding until they became established

A good friend arrived down from Nelson to see us, bringing a trailer load of NZ Kowhai (Sophora microphylla) for us! These beautiful trees have fern-like foliage and the most beautiful deep golden flowers, they flower profusely from Sept-Nov, attracting the bellbirds who feast on the nectar in the flowers and bring wonderful bird song to the garden. We planted these trees at various spots, they are hardy and dont mind the cold or the wind, both of which we get.

Around the front of the house there is a big bank, dropping down to the drive.The out-look from the front lawn is stunning,facing North and to the mountains,All day sun and exposed to the Nor-West wind that whistles down the Waiau River this bank was a challenge as it was largley made up of clay.so not particularly good soil;.The answer to this was the use of our Oasis Sewage System! From the tank 3 pipes were run along the bank in rows, and hey presto all the plants had water and nutrition!! it has worked wonderfuly well and all the plants have thrived!! We Planted much the same species as on the bank at the back, but also added some bigger trees,Hoheria angustifolia, which has small white flowers in summer,. Pittosporum tenuifolium another small tree with flowers in the summer which is hardy to cold and wind.The bank teems with bird life,the birds come for nectar and the seeds from the Toetoe.

We have three levels of lawn, and on the side of the path going down to the second level we have planted quite a few Muehlenbeckia compexa. This shrub is very hardy and has unusual small dark green leaves which are interlaced tiny cream colored flowers in the late spring, it makes a lovely contrast to the other foliage.

On the edge of the lawn we have a border of dwarf Toetoe (Chionochla flavicans) These make a lovely show in the spring with their weeping pale green flower heads especially when the wind is blowing.Once again being hardy they get no special treatment.and have thrived.

The Cabbage tree (Cordyline australis) is a New Zealand icon and can be seen right thu out the country. Multi-trunked it has tufts of foliage and sweet scented flowers.We have planted several of these as well they make quite an impact with very distictive foliage.At the front of the house we have some Lancewoods (Pseudopanax crassifolius) These will develop into a stunning round-headed tree with a straight clean trunk when mature. It has a long juvenile stage with long descendingdark green leaves.the wood is one of the toughest native timbers

Up the hill above the garden we have a great variety of weeds! all of which poke their heads up with monotonous regularity! Broom, blackberry,old mans beard, are the main culprits, and have to pulled out or sprayed all the time or the garden would be over-run.As the Natives get bigger and cover more ground they do a great job in keeping these weeds at bay,.

So that is our garden! We sourced most of the original plants from the D.O.C. Nursery at Motukarara just out of Christchurch, they produce good healthy plants which are all aclimatised to the conditions here, and they have all grown extremely well Our Native garden gives us much pleasure all the year round and the birds love it! Happy gardening