GROUND RULES

This busy but orderly garden is full to bursting with well-nurtured plants – that know how to behave

Everything is well-fed in this full to bursting, flower-filled Timaru garden

It’s a lucky plant that gets a ride home from the nursery in Rosy McBride’s car boot. It is headed for a green haven where it will be nurtured, well-nourished and never lonely. “It is over-planted,” Rosy admits of her Timaru garden. “But I love my plants.” Rosy and her architect husband Dave moved to the property 25 years ago with three small boys, drawn by the charming twostorey brick house. The section was small – 600sqm – and the “garden” consisted of a few straggly shrubs, apple trees and bare dirt. “We took them out and started from scratch,” says Rosy. “A garden should reflect the style of the house. This is an English arts and crafts house. It’s also brick and it’s orange. You have to remember that and plant appropriately.”

A garden also reflects the personality of its gardener, and Rosy’s patch is both busy and highly organised. She is thorough in her research, as evidenced by a pile of folders recording the garden’s progress from day one. It includes photos, plant labels and report cards: “Fragrant, too straggly, too buggy.”

Rosy knows all her plants by name and, in return for her devotion, expects them to perform. If they behave, they are granted some liberties. Coral ‘Thalia’ fuchsia scrambles through an arch of ‘Iceberg’ roses; the ficus is allowed to clamber (“though I have to watch it”); sweet-smelling giant lilies ( Cardiocrinum giganteum) can spread their seed at will. Only the Acanthus mollis overstepped the mark and was expelled, although a less boisterous cousin, Acanthus spinosus, has been given a place in a pot.