Re: `Britain Meets the Bay'?
Sean A. O'Hara wrote:
>
> Fellow Medit-Plants persons -
>
> I just received an invitation to a reception for a noted > English landscape designer, Julian Dowle... I have uncovered that he is apparently > participating in the `Britain Meets the Bay' Flower Show at> a major downtown Merchant (Macy's) later this month. (snip)
I have been following this thread with some interest, as there has been
a good deal of discussion in New Zealand in recent times about breaking
away from European styles and developing garden designs with a
distinctive New Zealand Flavour. As you might expect there is little
unanimity about what this should be, but there is certainly an
ever-increasing interest in the use of native material and several
people have designed all-native gardens, while at least one well-known
designer in the Wellington area advertizes that he mainly uses natives.
There are two characteristics of the NZ flora which tend to make
all-native gardens distinctive, one is the paucity of herbaceous plants,
including bulbs, and the preponderence among them of white flowers, and
the other is that virtually all trees and shrubs are evergreen.
Regarding the former, there was an interesting garden at the national
flower show a few years ago using only native material in the flower
beds which was surprisingly colourful, but the herbs had to be
supplemented by a number of low-growing and scrambling shrubs to get
enough variety.
One area where many native species fit in well is actually the
Mediterranean-style garden, as the are a lot of species well suited to
coping with dry weather in summer and also with exposed coastal
habitats, and there are some very fine gardens in this style in several
parts of the country.
The other area where a native theme can look very good is Alpine
gardening. This is really limited to suitable areas in our South Island.
NZ is blessed with a beautiful and distinctive Alpine flora whith many
striking and spectacualar species, particularly Celmisias, Aciphyllas
and some truely spectacular buttercups. If one lives in the areas which
get regular winter snows, such a garden is a breeze, nature will do most
of the work for you, but in lowland areas such as where I live such
beauties will not flourish, but gradually fade away, pining for their
winter snow blanket.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata,
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
