Flowers and fun in the Wairarapa
Passionate gardeners go to great lengths for their plants, which is why Erica Kinder understands when extreme measures are required.
A country garden that doubled in size to meet a garden tour deadline
tErica has moved many times between the North and South Islands, and each time her favourite plants have moved with her. One ‘Sugar Plum’ rose has moved six times.
here’s a lot to be said for opening one’s garden to the public. For some, it’s about sharing their labours and love of plants. For others, it’s a chance to raise money for charity. For Erica Kinder, it’s all of those things – plus it puts a rocket under your renovation plans. Last November, she opened her garden for the Wairarapa Garden Tour – five months after doubling it in size. “I was approached about the garden tour last April, so I thought, ‘Great, I’ve been planning this, so let’s do it.’”
Two weeks later they blew the fence into the paddock and prepared two huge planter beds. “I wanted them to be full of perennials and look amazing, so moved things from all over the garden, and bought 12 new roses: some David Austens, another ‘Penelope’ and ‘Pink Fairy’.” Erica was aiming for a pink and white theme but the lucky dip nature of donated cuttings meant yellow and cherry red appeared in places too.
Whatever possessed this busy mother and Beef+Lamb NZ coordinator to take on such a task? And how many hours of hard slog did it take? “I just wanted to do it. People never tell the truth when you ask them how long they spend in the garden. I reckon it’s like asking my age. There’s no such thing as a low-maintenance garden. Let’s just say I don’t watch a lot of TV, and I don’t go to the gym. I’m working, I have kids, and we do loads of afterschool activities. But I do it when I have time.”
Seven years ago, Erica left a town garden in Nelson and moved north, buying this 4ha lifestyle block (the garden now takes up about a quarter of it). It was quite a dramatic difference, both in climate and soil.
“It’s very gravelly and free-draining here. We’re surrounded by vineyards, so it’s ideal growing conditions for grapes. Our two major challenges are extreme frost in the winter – it can go down to -10°C here – and watering in summer. With gravel, everything just drains away.”
This is compounded by the climate: “We had six weeks of no rain in early summer, and temperatures up to 30°C through to the end of February. We can get a screaming norwester too, and will lose a tree nearly every year.”
In fact two days before the garden tour, a Cornus ‘Eddie’s White Wonder’ was in full flower but wind snapped it off at ground level.
Erica remains philosophical. “The rule in Wairarapa is that if you can see the Tararuas, you’re going to get the wind. But wind has been a challenge everywhere we’ve lived in New Zealand.”
Erica has moved many times between the North and South Islands, and each time she has moved favourite plants with her. “We brought about 20 roses from Nelson. All the paeonies were lifted in chunks and brought over on the ferry, as were rhodos and some big camellias. I’ve got a ‘Sugar Plum’ rose from our house in Gisborne that’s moved six times!”
When they arrived, it was a typically rambling, country property, with natives, roses, overgrown perennial borders and plenty of beautiful, established trees, including silk trees ( Albizia julibrissin), oaks, t¯otara, paperbark maples ( Acer griseum) and a huge copper beech in the centre. “The thing that sold it for me was that it had its own bore. A lot of our neighbours are on tank or scheme water, with only a certain allocation. The ground water is so deep, it’s
not always possible to have your own bore, so we’re very lucky. It’s the only reason we can have this style of garden in these conditions.”
Last year’s extension was inspired by Carol Klein’s Glebe Cottage in north Devon in the UK. “I saw her TV show
Life in a Cottage Garden and thought, ‘That’s what I want: the big grasses, huge dahlias, the seasonal change.’”
Another idea of Klein’s she stole was portable pots. “I had bulbs in spring, then they were lifted, now there’s grasses in summer, and I’m planting salvias for autumn. In winter I’ll just empty them out, put them away in the shed and I’m done. It suits my style of gardening because I don’t want it to be established, or look the same all year. I want it to be changing and mobile.”
Erica’s work running workshops and events for Beef + Lamb NZ takes her all over the lower North Island. Her garden is filled with treasures from her travels, especially rare perennials. She has several varieties of geranium, phlomis, heuchera, foxglove and more. “Finding and growing new plants is my passion. I grow from seed, from
In Nelson, her favourite plant was the rose, but in Wairarapa they struggle in the gravel. “We almost never get a second flush.”
cuttings in somebody’s grandmother’s garden, and buy them on Trade Me. I spend evenings in winter surfing nursery websites, like Marshwood Gardens. I’m always perusing the plant table at school fetes, markets and church fairs. I beg, borrow, steal… and grow!”
Erica built a small glasshouse with her father to get seeds off to a good start in spring. Trips south to see family usually result in a visit to Blenheim’s Devon Nursery, which specialises in perennials. Dahlias, coloured broom and feathery miscanthus are a feature in autumn, and she’s had great success with buddleias. “People think I’m mad, but I’ve quite a few beautiful rare varieties after going on a Trade Me binge. In this climate, they’re great and on the garden tour people thought they were lilacs. They’re just so good; you can take cuttings, they’re sterile so don’t seed, and butterflies love them.”
Irises are welcome one-hit wonders: some were woody clumps she discovered in the undergrowth; some moved up from Nelson; and some, recent purchases. “Every year I get another one, but they take up such a lot of space, then you’ve got nothing for the rest of the year. I’m like that with a lot of plants: I craze on them, then go off again.” Nevertheless, this autumn Erica is moving her collection to create a dedicated iris walk in the paddock extension. “They need space and heat on the tubers in summer.”
The best performer of all, though, are salvia. “They need heat and long summers, they don’t mind dry conditions and don’t need feeding and spraying. They provide a long season of colour, and give so much! There’s a salvia for every day of the week from spring and into winter.”
In Nelson, her favourite plant was the rose, but they struggle in the Wairarapa gravel. “We almost never get a second flush, you can be pouring on so much water but
“Every house I've ever lived in I've planted an orchard. But here, there's a real struggle with the wind. Anything hanging on the trees blows off.”
it just drains away. I’ve spent the last seven years building up the soil with sheep and horse poo, loads of compost, bark, pea straw, you name it.”
Still she persists, and among her picks are the persica rose ‘Bright Eyes’, David Austin’s ‘English Garden’ and the Floribunda ‘Eye of the Tiger’. ‘Blueberry Hill’ is a feature in her purple garden, and she loves the ruffled blooms on ‘Frilly Jilly’ and ‘French Lace’. The dry conditions mean a garden blessedly free of black spot and aphids. “I might do a copper spray if I’ve got time, but my main issue is just keeping the water up to get a second flush of flowering – otherwise they’re just sticks.”
In these conditions, and to her sorrow, one relative failure is fruit trees. “Every house I’ve ever lived in I’ve planted an orchard. But here, there’s a real struggle with the wind. Anything hanging on the trees blows off. It’s hard to keep the water up, and if they’re not dried up, then the birds get them,” Erica says. “Birds and I are sworn enemies. We wage war on each other. Nothing ever gets to size. I’ve made friends with a local vineyard owner, who recently gave me about 3km of netting. We started before Christmas and every tree looked like a mummy.”
Berry fruit do well here, though. “When I moved, my sister-in-law bought up wild gooseberry cuttings from her sheep station in the South Island. This year, everyone who came for the tour was amazed at these huge berries. I didn’t want to net them while visitors were there, so waited one day and birds got every last one overnight!”
Blackcurrants also grow successfully here, and are frozen for winter smoothies and puddings. They also harvest “kilos and kilos” of carefully netted raspberries.
Preserving her harvest comes in ebbs and flows, says Erica. “Some years I do it if I can be bothered. I try
to bottle tomatoes and use them during the winter but preserving jars are quite hard to come by now, and every year I seem to break another one.”
Garden tour visitors admired her vege garden too, where Erica is growing purple-flowered broad beans “just because they look cool, are vigorous, productive and they don’t take as much space”. Red and white cabbage, tomato, corn, strawberry, potato, broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce also perform well. A huge patch of old-fashioned red rhubarb is something of a family heirloom, sourced from Erica’s maternal grandmother’s property in Central Otago.
All this receives the bare minimum of attention: a trailer load of manure in winter, a little general fertiliser in spring and a cheap timed sprinkler system that comes on in the middle of the night.
Hanging baskets line an old moss-covered fence from the sheep paddock. Erica was inspired by a trip to Canada (where the extreme climate means pot gardens are common) and Jenny Oakley’s garden in south Taranaki (a ‘Naki festival favourite). A quick study of Jenny’s YouTube tutorial resulted in baskets stuffed with silver cinerarias, lobelia, parsley and pansies. “I wanted to kill myself over watering them though. Before the garden tour, I was doing it three times a day, even coming home from work at lunchtime. It was like having a baby all over again!”
Erica is scaling back this year, concentrating on the iris walk and doing as many festivals as she can. It seems like a lot of work, but she prefers intense bursts of labour. “I can go for weeks and not do anything, then work solidly for three days. It works for me.” How to visit: The Kinder Garden is open by appointment only. Email erica.kinder@beeflambnz.com.