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Muriel started creating Maple Glen from a bare paddock. A plant collecting nut, gardening nut and bird nut ever since.

When planting this sort of garden though it is important not to mix plants with conflicting dormant periods. It can be tempting to try and combine things like this to extend the season of an area but it does not work! For example, Astilbes and Daffodils (as in a bed of astilbes with a daffodil border) do not combine well because the daffs are through the ground at just about the time the Astilbes completely die off.

There is nothing that improves the look of the garden more than a run around with the mower. Blowing twigs and stray leaves off the lawns enhances the shapes of the edges and draws the eye away from any weeds that may be present!

We also often decide to remove or cut back quite large trees and shrubs to improve views or provide more space for other plantings. The firewood is split, dried and used to heat our house in winter. Removing a golden pine

Well, we do grow and value many New Zealand native plants in our garden. Among them are a very nice Agathis (Kauri) and many Arthropodium (Rock Lily), Astelia 'Silver Spear', Cordyline (Cabbage Tree), Celmisia (Mountain Daisy), Carex secta (Swamp Tussock), Chionchloa (Snow Grass), Clematis forsteri, Clianthus (Kaka beak), Dacrydium (Red Pine), Libertia, Myosotidium (Chatham Island Forget-me-not), Nothofagus (Native Beech), Pittosporum, Podocarpus (Totara) and Sophora (Kowhai).

However, we grow these plants not because they are New Zealand natives, but because we like them. Because they grow well in our climate and location and have interesting habit, foliage or flowers. The same criteria by which we choose all of the plants we grow.

To value one plant over another because of its country of origin seems to us about as sensible as valuing one person over another because of their country of origin, or to put it even more bluntly, to value a person over another because of the colour of their skin.

Over the top? Perhaps, but there is definitely an element of xenophobia in the labeling of plants which have been declared pests in this country. Ongoing attacks on our garden by the local environmental council frustrate and sadden us.

Just what is a 'native' anyway? Plants such as that Myosotidium are from the Chatham Islands, 700 kilometres to the east of New Zealand and are aclaimed as 'native'. If there was an island the same distance off our west coast that had been claimed by Australia 150 years ago would the plants and animals from there be 'exotic'?

In common with most pond-side plants, Aruncus dies completely away in winter to a woody underground clump. Division of the plant is best done then. Breaking one up however is an exercise in brute strength. A chainsaw would come in handy at times.

In nature Astilbes evolved to cope with a yearly dumping of silt from winter floods by always growing upwards. The new growing points each year form on top of their dead ancestors. In a garden setting and over the course of a number of years Astilbe clumps will literally grow themselves right out of the ground. This leads to the plant suffering severely from drought in summer and flowering very poorly.

Therefore, every four or five years Astilbe clumps should be dug in winter while dormant, divided if necessary and the bottom 1/3rd of the clump (which will likely consist of nothing but dead and rotting roots) needs to be cut off with a sharp spade. The clump can then be re-planted deeper, with 5-10cm of loose soil over the top of it. Astilbe also benefit from a little fertilizer at this time, thus mimicing the effects of a layer of fertile silt left by a flood.

Left, Astilbes in flower. Right, new spring foliage of Astilbe 'Fanal'.

What to say about this largest and most spectacular member of the lily family?
Cardiocrinums take seven year to reach flowering size from seed. Each year the glossy, heart shaped leaf gets larger until in its seventh spring the plant goes from a winter-dormant surface bulb to a flower stem up to 3.5 metres high in less than four months. The largest stems can have 20-30 tubular, highly scented lily flowers. Each flower gives way to a large seed-pod that slowly forms over the remaining summer months. After the first real frost of winter the pods begin to open and the lightest breeze or disturbance of the stem causes the large seeds to disperse. There is quite a lot of it, we once counted the contents of one pod and got to 1000 seeds.
Not all Cardiocrinum seed germinates and many of the seedlings do fall by the wayside. Seed germinates best on bare, freshly disturbed soil. When planting under trees clear away the leaf-litter before scattering the seed on or just under the surface.

Near flowering size bulbs should not disturbed or transplanted. Cardiocrinum need time to develop the extensive root system necessary to hold that huge flowering stem up in a strong wind. Flowering size plants that have been recently planted out will need staking if they are not to blow over.

In our climate Cardiocrinum will grow just about anywhere, though the leaf is prone to sunburn later in summer if the plant is growing in full sun.

Colchicums like the same growing conditions as Daffodils and indeed make good companion plants for them. They prefer heavy, moist soil they do not like shade - even fairly high shade causes the flowers to all lean towards the sun.

Colchicums spend more than half the year below ground and their growing cycle is most odd. The plant flowers on bare ground, showing no leaves in the autumn, these flowers die away and then late in winter the large shiny leaves begin to appear. Colchicum patches are solid with tightly packed leaves (with no room for weeds!) all through spring before dying away again in early summer.

Muriel has worked every July to propogate and spread them with great success. Snowdrops are unusual bulbs in that they can be safely dug up and transplanted while in full flower. Doing this to a Daffodil (for example) would severely weaken it and perhaps even stop it flowering for a year or two but Snowdrops never seem to miss a beat.

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