WHITE CHRISTMAS

Summer is erratic in arriving in Canterbury. It may be a scorcher on Show Day in early November..

W hen the searing nor’wester blasts its way from Australia, over the mountains and across the Plains, it feels like summer has arrived. The air is thick with the fragrance of a thousand roses and the gardens are glorious. Grannies are donning their bonnets, the cornflowers are crisp and the delphiniums are bursting with gorgeousness.

But that’s not summer. Summer is officially December, and some time between those fabulous days of spring and Christmas, the temperatures droop and a miserable little easterly can be eating away at your comfort. The garden has lost its first flush, and mine gets a little overlooked in the seasonal frenzy.

But then, it’s the week before Christmas and the list of chores for the big day grows… tidy the garden, clean the silver, get the Christmas lilies. And it is at that moment, when I stop at our local dairy to buy those lilies and fill my car with their heavenly scent, that I know summer has arrived.

There is a bit of confusion over Christmas lilies.

In Auckland, the term seems to refers to the pure white Lilium

longiflorum, while in Canterbury we are talking about Lilium regale, which has a similarly trumpet-shaped flower with creamy white petals, splodged with yellow on the inside and a maroon flush on the outside. Its stamens are prominent and bright yellow.

White lilies have long been a symbol of Christmas and summer in New Zealand. Ok, he did not specify the colour, but in the list of plants growing in the Kerikeri Mission Station in 1821, Samuel Marsden included lilies. By 1849, at the other end of the country, a Dunedin housewife was bemoaning the lack of lily bulbs at the local nursery. And from the 1880s onwards, newspapers were diligently describing Christmas flowers in the churches – almost all included either white or “Christmas lilies” (but probably not Lilium regale – native to southwest China, these were not introduced into western gardens until 1903.)

Last spring, after years of grumbling at the price of these lilies, which are sold by the bud, I decided to grow my own from seed. An easy enough task, but not for those preferring instant gratification; I have just learned they take two seasons to mature from initial transplant. However, once mature, they should do well. In these parts, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, it is not uncommon, though becoming more so, to see outside houses in suburban streets, signs and honesty boxes offering them for sale.

Plant the bulbs in September to October (some say May to July) in a sunny spot in free-draining soil. Soil enriched with well-rotted manure or leaf mould will produce sturdier stems, healthier plants and more blooms. When picking them, don’t cut right down to the bulb, as the stem replenishes the bulb (the stems can grow to a metre or so).

But for me no plant captures the promise of early summer like renga renga.

Also known as Cape Reinga lily ( Arthropodium cirratum), it may begin flowering in late spring up north, but in my garden where it thrives in the light shade on a bank, it never reaches full brilliance till mid-December. Then, a galaxy of pristine, starry, six-petalled, white flowers with their clear yellow and purple stamens shimmers high over the clumps of bright green strappy foliage. Growing it in light shade means the flowers bloom later and longer, as they tend not to burn out the way they do in full sun. The leaves also stay fresh longer, although the pernickety might have to turn a blind eye later in the season, when they often look tatty – snails, slugs and wind having taken their toll. On the plus side, renga renga seeds easily and grows fast, making it a quick groundcover for banks or under trees.

Renga renga is a New Zealand native but does not naturally occur much south of Kaikoura. As a child, I spent holidays on a farm in Goose Bay. Perhaps it was on those precipitous and rocky hills that I first saw it en masse and began to associate it with warm breezes, stony creeks and endless summers.