The answer is in hedges and edges
Ginny Clark says it’s the time to plant as the soil is warm and the rain has come
FOR THOSE WHO ARE SEARCHING for the answer to the easy-care garden and wonder how you can best do this while also creating a garden that is an inviting place that you want to spend time in, the answer is in good edges and hedges! Hedges are fantastic as screens, wind breaks and garden tidiers.
Yes, the rest of the garden could be an absolute shambles with weeds galore, but if hidden behind a hedge (low or high) that is well maintained, then no one will know. It is all about first impressions, and drawing the eye to what looks good and not bad!
Hedges and edges can pull a garden together.
“Less is more” certainly applies here. You could consider a low edge of flowering annuals such as alyssum, lobelia or pansies. Or how about something a little higher like parsley, rainbow silverbeet or dianthus. Lamb’s ear, dwarf agapanthus, liriope (for the shade) and mondo grass are also good for edging.
When choosing the right hedge, consider how high you want it to grow.
My favourite low to medium hedge is the japanese box, buxus microphylla. This can be trimmed to 30cm or let it get taller to 1.2m. It is quick to grow and disease free. This is the hedge that we have along the road front at Decor Gardenworld. Another favourite is corokia korokio decors choice. This lovely slightly grey-toned foliage plant is underestimated in my opinion and is an epic success in Tauranga.
It can be grown as either a low border hedge to 60cm or as one that gets up to 1.6 m. Korokio decors choice responds really well to trimming and is pretty drought tolerant and easy-care. Corokia geentys green is also good.
If you want something taller then you can’t go past New Zealand’s favourite, the native griselinia broadway mint.
It is green and lush looking and tough as old boots. Camellia setsugekka or early pearly are also Tauranga favourites, with the bonus of white flowers in the winter time and again they are easy-care. Photinia red robin is a goody if you want something with a lovely red leaf tone.
Now is the perfect time to plant hedges and edges as the soil is still warm and the rain has come. So get out to Decor Gardenworld and check out your options.
“Less is more” certainly applies here.
AS THE HANDMAID’S TALE returns for season four, its creator is reluctant to predict when the dystopian drama will be ready for its final act.
“Every time I come upon a season, I don’t have any idea what we’re going to do,” Bruce Miller says. “And every time I get to the end of the season, I’m thrilled with what we’ve done . . . and I feel like I could go on and on forever.”
That's if Elisabeth Moss sticks with the series based on Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel, says Miller. He lavished praise on Moss as a fellow executive producer and a newly minted director for the series, as well as its star.
“I think I can keep going as long as I can rope Lizzie into it,” Miller says.
Asked at another point during a virtual Q&A with TV critics if he considered killing Moss' character, June, last season, his reply was a swift “no”.
“The show is called The Handmaid’s Tale, ” he says. “It's about her."
Miller says he’s fascinated by what unfolds in Atwood's 2019 companion novel, The Testaments, set 15 years later. Whether it's going to be “part of our future, that’s a bigger question”.
Hulu acquired rights to the book with a sequel series in mind.
The Handmaid's Tale is already renewed for another season, but the 10-episode arc doesn’t hold back on playing out story lines, Miller says. “We’re delivering,” he said. “We were trying to make progress. You know, it was time for [expletive] to happen.”
Warren Littlefield, also an executive producer for the show, said this season is about “patience rewarded”.
After planting seeds for several years “about this uprising and hotspot in Chicago” that the repressive Gilead regime is unable to control, Littlefield says, the action moves there from what had been “our central universe” near Boston.
In the approaching season, rebel leader June takes risks and faces new challenges, which could also be said of Moss. She directed three episodes under trying pandemic-safety conditions.
“I just felt I was up to the task after a few years of watching and learning and working with some really incredible directors,” says Moss, who won a best drama actress Emmy in 2017 for The Handmaid's Tale.
MURCHISON CERTAINLY SITS pretty in the Four Rivers plain, dishing up nature and adventure at every turn. To the right of town, Nelson Lakes National Park unfurls its bejewelled splendour, while the tapestried alpine grandeur of Kahurangi National Park rises up on its left.
It’s the hiking trails, thickly enrobed in native forest, that commanded my attention, offering a spoil of short and sweet walks to enrich your daily sightseeing.
Close to town, the Skyline Walk, which starts from the west bank of the Matakitaki River, zig-zagging up the hillside through beech and podocarp forest.
As the name would suggest, it’s all about the view once you ascend the bushline. A stunningly rangy view of two national parks and the rivers that flow around Murchison, snaking across the landscape likes twisting silvered ribbons in the bright sunshine.
Further afield, the super-short track to Maruia Falls provides a divine perspective on the waterworks. These falls were created as a result of the 1929 Murchison earthquake.
My favourite Murch experience is the Upper Buller Gorge, which is adorned with New Zealand’s longest swingbridge — and the longest south of the equator. What better way is there to soak up the grandeur of the grumbling Buller Gorge and its stroppy splendour than to walk across that bridge’s ridiculously long span? It’s longer than a rugby field and as high as a six-storey building and, from it, you can gaze down at those gigantic boulders and that deep green churning water.
Gephyrophobia is the fear of crossing bridges. I felt a twinge of gephyrophobia as I stepped out on this long swaying bridge, but the majesty of the views soon slayed my anxiety.
The locals say the river is like a drunk and violent neighbour. Its mesmerising beauty belies its unpredictable turbulence, which is not to be trifled with. After you’ve traversed the swingbridge, there’s a fantastic loop walk that includes markers of how high the river can rise in a raging torrent. In flood it has surged as high as 12 metres.
Another powerful totem to nature’s might is the White Creek fault line, epicentre of the 1929 Murchison earthquake. You’ll walk right across the faultline on this loop track and readily see first-hand how the ground was thrust up by 4.5m, in an instant, when that 7.8-magnitude quake ruptured — the third deadliest in New Zealand’s history, after Napier and Christchurch.
If you’re up for a four-hour guided tour of the backcountry with a difference, the Natural Flames Experience is a bit quirky. Tucked away deep in the bush on private land close to Murchison is a seepage of natural gas that has been burning non-stop for nearly a century, after a couple of curious framers set light to it, while out hunting. It’s been flickering beneath the fern leaves ever since, and is now used to cook pancakes and boil billy tea, as you do.
And, if you want to get up close with all that whitewater in the Buller Gorge, there’s a stack of excursions, whether you want to raft or kayak it, or take a spin in a Buller Canyon Jet boat ride. It’s a breathtaking body of water.
Murchison boasts some quirky mercantile delights and salivating pub fare at the Hampden Hotel. Check out the poignant displays showcasing the horror of the 1929 quake at the Murchison Museum.
Tatuku Bakery is right next door, operating out of a caravan loaded with home-made goods and artisan pies.
Hodgson's general store is so old and authentic, it still has a ladder on wheels for reaching the upper shelves. This retail institution was decimated by the earthquake, but was swiftly rebuilt, remaining a cherished mainstay in Murch.
Finally, Lyell marks the southern trailhead of the storied Old Ghost Road walking and cycling trail.
This long-forgotten gold miners’ road has been revived as a mountain biking and tramping trail — connecting the old dray road in the Lyell (Upper Buller Gorge) to the mighty Mokihinui River in the north, spilling out at Seddonville.
The 85km trail traverses majestic native forest, open tussock tops, river flats and forgotten valleys. Remote and challenging, this is an epic wilderness adventure for fit, intrepid mountain bikers, navigating narrow trails with seriously steep drop-offs. Alternatively, you can walk it, which on average takes four to five days.