LANDSCAPING WITH N.Z. NATIVE PLANTS ©

“Nature plants in threes”. A grouping of any three imperfectly matched objects is an artwork. Three rocks in a cluster, three weathered railway sleepers on end or three plants of similar or related species all work the same kind of magic in the garden. Ideally a really natural placement should look as if someone has stood with his back to the garden and thrown the plants backwards over his head and then planted them wherever they landed. This is not a bad way of determining placement initially as long as the plant material is not too delicate to sustain being airborne for a metre  or two.

The design rules when working with Natives are much the same are those which apply elsewhere but with some major modifications, governed by the uniqueness of the environments from which many of the species have originated. New Zealand Natives have a long and noble pedigree. Many have existed almost unchanged since before New Zealand sheared itself off from the rest of Antarctica and began its slow voyage north. They are living fossils superbly adapted to their environment and unforgiving when asked to grow in one that may be less than suitable.

Hence, the first rule is to match the right plant to the right place. Most New Zealand native species are ‘canopy plants' which spend their early lives vainly reaching skywards under a protective canopy of mature forest. They only see the full light of day when a larger tree falls or a slip occurs allowing them to reach out and take over the niche recently vacated in the competing patch of forest. Many of our Pittosporums which are currently used for hedging and shelter fall into this category and hence cannot be expected to survive well when planted singly or in rows in seriously exposed sites. The way to success here is to provide a ‘nurse’ crop such as conifers or more hardy lower growing native species such as the Coprosnas that afford short term protection such as would occur on the edge of an expanding native forest where new species are able to establish themselves by creeping forward under the protection of larger or more hardy ones.

The opposite situation occurs when sub alpine or tussockland species are planted under canopy such as overhanging trees – they do poorly, becoming loose and sprawling with indifferent colour whereas their natural configuration would be ground hugging ,compact with a richness of colour for which they are world renowned. These would include the Acaenas, the coloured flaxes and Marlborough Daisies.

Q.“How big will my Native plant  grow?”

A.“How long is a piece of string”.

New Zealand Natives are extremely site specific in their growth habits. A Hebe which will sprawl to two metres in all directions in a sheltered gully will only grow to half a metre in an exposed position and remain compact and profusely flowering in response to what it perceives as a stressful situation. Pittosporums that grow to sizeable trees in a woodland setting on the port hills will bonsai themselves into balls of green fluff on exposed slopes only metres away.

On Key Summit in Fiordland National Park is a cluster of three hundred year old Silver Beech trees with bases of almost a metre across, They have been held down to less than four metres in height, so savage is their environment with persistently high winds funnelling up over their ridge from the whole of the Routeburn Valley below.

Myths explored and exploded–“Natives look after themselves”– wrong and wrong again.

Native plants need just as much care and attention during their establishment phases as any other. They need adequate and regular water during the first three months in the ground and thereafter until the beginning of their first winter. By then natives can largely fend for themselves as long as they are well mulched and get a little extra water in times of drought. A temporary watering system of nail holes in some cheap irrigation tubing or a soaker hose will suffice and no properly mulched native garden requires more than five minutes of this kind of watering every two days. Although easy to turn on almost everybody at some time or another forgets to turn off their hose so a manually operated (good quality) Irrigation Timer is a good investment It not only saves precious water and embarrassment in front of the neighbours but can be moved to other areas of the garden when its job is done.

Once established Natives can happily look after themselves as long as their natural environment is maintained. This means adequate mulching with any organic material capable of decay such as leaves, chipped wood or pine bark mulch. These materials decay gradually into the most superb native plant food, slightly acidic, just as they like it. The worm and microbial activity does the rest and what results is a slow release fertiliser manufactured by the forest floor itself. What Natives do not like is to be exposed to Lime, Mushroom compost, Rose fertiliser or horse manure which will kill them stone dead. An exception to the rule occurs when native plants have just been put in the ground. A light dusting of complete fertiliser will help promote leaf growth and speed up establishment during the initial phases when the roots are first reaching out into the adjacent soil. Another situation where the rules need to be bent is where plastic weedmat or rock mulch or indeed both are used. With no decaying material to supply the nutrient needs of these plants eventually they will run out of the food that originally sustained them whilst in their pots and the plants will become straggly and sad. A regular feed will replace the nutrients lost over time and keep the plants performing as they should. The last exception to the “look after themselves “ rule applies to Chatham Island Forget-me-nots, whose huge luscious leaves adorn the foreshore of those wild islands. In the garden centre they look almost good enough to eat but after a few months in the ground they tend to die back and become less and less appealing, finally disappearing into their thick, darkly coloured corms, never to be heard from again. They have simply starved themselves to death. On the shoreline of the Chathams they feast upon rotting seaweed and other rapidly decaying organic matter. Away from their island existence they must have supplementary feeding in order to thrive. A dusting of topdressing every three months although perhaps regarded by some as an onerous task is in truth not a great price to pay for a spreading bed of luscious fat leaves and a joyous family of shamelessly propagating “Forget-me-nots”.

Beyond all this, the basic rules of landscaping still apply. Borders look best when planted out in the conventional three tiers – background, midground and foreground. For fencelines the pittosporums and Ake Akes do a wonderful job of making the neighbours go away and creating the illusion of your own green and private patch of paradise. The under utilised North Island five finger is a superb fat leaved, tropical looking shrub that tops at just above fence height making it excellent for immediate privacy and for creating rhythm and pulling together a garden of diverse elements when interplanted with other less dominant shrubs. Remember three is the magic number or is it five? Sometimes even seven? No matter as long as you plant in odd numbers it will always work. The only place for even numbers is beside an entranceway or in some other distinctively symmetrical design construct..

Grasses look great amongst rocks especially out in exposed island beds where their showy seedheads get to play in the wind. Remember that three rocks placed close together makes an artwork that looks as if it had been there for centuries. When choosing rocks,the best strategy is to buy only flat based ones that can be used face down to create the illusion that they are part of an outcrop most of which is submerged beneath the surface. Much less digging and weighty moving this way and do stay clear of the oversized bowling balls that sit on the surface waiting for the next earthquake to move them on, they will never look right even in a million years.

In between groups of grasses mats of purple Bidibid will love the harsh conditions and turn vibrant red in response to all the neglect you can come up with. The same kind of conditions are welcomed by the highly architectural Astelia Nervosa from the subalpine herb fields of the Southern Alps , the grey cushions of Hebe topiari from Arhthur’s Pass and the vibrant gold and green spikes of the alpine native iris, Libertia xoides. The list of native plants that can be described as either highly decorative, architectural or just plain unique is almost limitless due to the acknowledged position New Zealand holds within world ecology as one of the major ‘hot spots ‘ on the planet. This is because of the vast number of species occurring here that do so nowhere else in the world-the legacy of being a tiny land mass that has inherited the bounty of Antarctica when it existed as a subtropical paradise known as Gondwanaland.

In the past many of these plants have had a precarious existence either because of climate change or because of human predation either direct or through the actions of domesticated or introduced animals. Many have been listed as ‘endangered species’ but some had had the good fortune to have been clutched back from extinction by passionate people who have salvaged and propagated obscure species such as the highly decorative Poor Knights’ Lilly, the Tecomanthe climber and even Astelia “Silver Spear” such that these are now so readily available commercially that it is highly unlikely they will never be endangered again.

Many plants offered for sale today are Pseudo Native ie: they come from New Zealand but are destined to be planted well away from the locality from which they have originated. such as There is nothing to stand in the way of our using these “out of towners” from the North Island, Marlborough Sounds or the Chatham Islands for our gardening pleasure as long as we realise that some actually have the capacity to become pests and we need to be mindful that there may be long term effects. Such an effect can be seen when the “Snowgrass”, a native of the dry tussocklands is planted too near our lovingly cared for lawns. In a few years the sheared off spikes of its self seeded progeny can ruin pre existing lawn and may infest it to such a degree that it may need total replacement. Another form of Pseudo Pseudo native forms are created through hybridisation either in nature or by human intervention and and then propagated through cuttings. These are usually identified as having “nick names’ applied to them such as Pittosporum “Mountain Green” or something more commercially appealing such as Phormium “Rainbow Sunrise”. Hebes carrying the “Wiri” prefix have all originated from hybridisations carried out at the Auckland Botanic Gardens in the 1980’s with a pure species of Hebe speciosa ( large leafed with maroon flowers) being crossed with an equally pure species of Hebe diosmafolia ( small leafed with white flowers) resulting in an assortment of pink and purple flowering Hebes with a vast array of leaf sizes and shapes. The ever popular Hebe “Inspiration” was created in 1970 in Nelson and clones of this plant have been adorning gardens here and across the world ever since and without interruption.

These hybridised plants are all wonderfully decorative but with the exception of Hebes tend to be smaller, weaker and prematurely aged compared with their generic counterparts.- that is, the ones that are naturally occurring and have arisen from seed where a fresh admixture of plant DNA during the process of pollination ensures strong and vigorous plants dead keen to take their place in a hostile world and to reach their greatest growth potential in the shortest space of time.

Hence the around the more intimate areas of our gardens, away from strong winds and with plenty of tender loving care and careful pruning and feeding, these weaker forms will continue to perform decoratively as they were created to do. Shelter belts and exposed sites are not the place for these specialist plants.

The exception to the rule (there always is at least one) is the coloured flaxes that have been created by conserving and harvesting random “sports” of mutated fans and propagating these to give the current highly popular coloured forms. Under the harsher south Island conditions these coloured flaxes become truly spectacular especially when combined with the pink and red flowering dwarf manukas.

The final but most important question to ask when planning native gardens is “What is the job your plants will be required to do?”. Is it Privacy and Screening? Is it Shelter ? Is it Feature Colour ? Is it a Coastal or an exposed roadside bed? Once you know what Job the Plant is required to do, choosing the plant or plants is the easy part. We have all seen big trees planted by mistake under eaves and examples of the overpowering lowland flax planted in error in a courtyard and doomed to expensive removal when it proceeds to choke out adjacent plants and uplift the paving. When it comes to plant selection for your native garden – ask the right questions and make sure you get the right answers. ©