KIWI MAGIC
So what does an iconic Kiwi garden look like? Leigh Bramwell offers some ideas.
AFEW YEARS AGO someone asked me to put together a design for an iconic Kiwi garden. Hmmm. I thought about it for quite a long while without much success, but I couldn’t refuse the challenge so I consulted Google.
Back in those days Google didn’t actually know everything, as it seems to now, and told me an icon was “a small picture or symbol on a computer screen that represents a function that the computer can perform”.
It appeared that I was on my own, then, so I decided to start by searching my own files for images we tend to think of as “Kiwi” and “iconic” in the broader meaning of the term. Then I would see how they might be blended into a garden design where native plants would dominate.
I didn't have to look far.
1
When I was a child corrugated iron was really only used for roofing, fencing and farm sheds, but over
the past two or three decades it has become a style icon. And now it’s a favourite not just as a primary cladding for very smart houses, but for raised garden beds, garden edging, pools, sculptures and more.
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You can’t mention corrugated iron without referencing sheep, which have also become iconic in the Kiwi garden. I have three ceramic sheep grazing on my lawn as we speak, and they have become populous in garden centres and design shops wherever I go. They vary from simple and unassuming styles to stone sculptures with carved wooden faces and feet, and everything in between. (Pukeko have also become popular as garden sculptures, which is ironic, as opposed to iconic, when you consider how the live versions are despised.)
3
If you're as old as I am you might remember when railway sleepers were given away when they were no longer in use under the tracks. As we all know they became valued by gardeners over time, and they're now an essential landscaping material for those who can afford upwards of $90 each.
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Reading one of those “10 best indoor plants” columns recently, I was surprised to read that our
much loved and most certainly iconic puka (Pukanui) is a member of the ficus species and performs well as a stand-out indoor plant. Who knew? I’ve grown two or three puka in containers in our courtyard and transplanted them to the garden when they started to look like teenagers wearing too-small clothes, but never inside. And rest assured, our puka (Meryta sinclairii) is endemic to New Zealand.
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New Zealanders love boats — even more, probably, since this year’s Americas Cup. So if you're lucky enough to get your hands on a dinghy — especially a wooden one — you’ll have a readymade objet d'art/icon for the garden, no matter what you do with it. This one is in unashamedly original condition and is used as a vege bin.
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We used to call it cutty grass, it's commonly known as toetoe, and it comes from a genus of five species of tall grasses called Austroderia. New Zealand's largest native grass, it’s a North Islander and is commonly found in freshwater swamps, but you can buy plants in some native plant nurseries and have your own clump at home. (Not to be confused with Pampas, which is a South American icon, not a Kiwi one, and is considered a pest In New Zealand.) 7
Check out this band of red tussock growing on the south coast of New Zealand. For several years Pukerau Primary School planted red tussock as part of a significant restoration project, successfully revegetating one hectare of the Pukerau Red Tussock Scientific Reserve. The reserve is on State Highway One between Gore and Clinton, and the sight of the tussock sparkling in the Southland sunshine will no doubt become, well, iconic.