How does your garden grow?

A woman looked over my gate this week and asked, ‘How do you get your flowers to grow?’ I looked with some despair at the cloudy masses of forget-me-nots and couldn’t think of an answer. ‘They just do,’ I said lamely, in the end. Which is true. I didn’t plant the forget-me-nots. They just come up every spring. So do a lot of other things which I inherited when I moved in nearly 40 years ago. ‘What about those,’ she asked, pointing at some aquilegias. I planted aquilegia seeds – probably decades ago – and they continue to come up every year. Often in less than convenient places. Fox gloves come up randomly, as does Solomon’s Seal, feverfew, borage, parsley, lemon balm, wind flowers, marigolds, geums … She told me that she’d tried to grow some daffodils in a pot but they got knocked over by the wind. Gardening’s like that, I reassured her, a roller coaster of success and failure.

While I have planted roses, herbs, fruit trees, vegetables, pansies, sweet peas, geraniums, raspberries, blackcurrants, and so on, many plants are self-sown or grown from cuttings I’ve been given. Others have spread of their own accord. Or contrarily given up the ghost.

Many large trees in the garden are self-sown and are usually indigenous such as several kōwhai, ake ake, pseudopanax, pittosporum and cabbage trees – or were planted by previous owners, such as the beech, karo, a very old hebe and a myrtle. The ake ake has an interesting trunk.

Although not a great fan of succulents, several years ago I bought some cute little ones at a market. Now they are in various parts of the garden, completely hidden by cottage garden plants at the moment except for some in pots. I’m encouraging some self-seeded elder plants to grow so I can make elderflower cordial.

Dips in the gardening roller coaster include plants which do not thrive or suddenly sicken. This has happened recently to a bay tree in a pot which was thriving until a few weeks ago when its leaves began to turn brown. It was badly affected by scale. I trimmed it back and administered what first aid I could. Now it’s just a matter of wait and see. A lime tree in a pot lost all its leaves, but there are new ones appearing, so I’m hoping it will recover. My lemon tree gets sooty mould from time to time, and once a more serious disease from which it has recovered. I had to remove all the affected fruit in the serious case, and pruned the tree in both cases to let air flow through. I’m still mourning a beautiful rose, a Westerland, which died last year.

A bit of a softie about what gets to grow, I often can’t bear to pull things out (except convolvulus). Children passing by might enjoy the dandelion clocks on the front berm. This week a gardener on tv was advocating for weeds in the garden. While not exactly a weed (whatever a ‘weed’ is) my artichoke is a bit of a thug in the garden, overshadowing the vegetables and rhubarb, but it is pleasing to look at. Today I noticed the first globes appearing.

I spend a lot of time just looking at the garden. Once the forget-me-nots have finished, other plants will re-emerge to take their place.

The much missed Westerland rose.