Red is the new blue
My favourite room This outdoor room proves that bold colour can be used to create a serene setting. Garden tasks for this week
Adramatic downstairs deck is the latest chapter in the almost 20-year renovation of Loena Wilson McCormack’s 1970s townhouse in Mission Bay, Auckland.
Landscape designer Trish Bartleet relished the challenge of intensively developing the small space to make it appear spacious. She took her cue from Loena’s many tribal rugs, continuing the blue and red tones outdoors with a bank of succulents and a rich red Corten-steel fence to give privacy from the street.
Despite being in a high density area where neighbours’ windows overlook backyards, Loena’s renovated garden is almost completely private, thanks to the striking red glass water feature at its centre and a crisp white motorised awning overhead.
A row of tall Chamaedorea costaricana palms across the back and a smaller variety along the side creates a soft vertical wall. ‘‘Weeping foliage creates a sense of loose space,’’ says Trish. ‘‘If this were a trimmed hedge you would feel more walled in.’’
Loena, who has a busy week as a secondary school English teacher, says the peace and privacy of her new deck are welcome at the end of the day. ’’The first thing I do when I come home is throw open the doors and turn on all the outdoor lights. It’s so warm and ambient out here and the water trickling over the glass makes a lovely sound.’’
What was your vision for this space?
My vision was to create an outdoor living space that gave the illusion of being an extension of the indoor living space. I hoped that it would offer privacy from the overlooking neighbouring homes (in a somewhat overcrowded city environment). Additionally my plan was for it to exude a somewhat exotic tropical ambience to make it a haven from the rigours of a busy life!
What are the key features of your garden?
The striking glass red wall and water feature provide privacy and shelter, but the wall’s transparent quality allows a glimpse of the planting beyond, and means the area doesn’t feel closed in. It’s lit at night and the palms behind cast magical shadows. A low, polished concrete bench around the water feature provides informal seating. It holds the heat at the end of the day - everyone loves it, children fall asleep on it.
How have you decorated this space?
I rescued a friend’s discarded wrought-iron outdoor table and chairs, which I had painted in red – I worried about which shade of red for weeks but when the painter came to pick them up for the repaint, he only had two shades to choose from. The outdoor patio set from Domo is the only new furniture I’ve ever bought – I usually prefer antiques and secondhand pieces. The hand-built ceramic birdbath is by Philip Luxton.
Where does your love of colour come from?
My mother. I once came home to discover her painting a wall of the family sitting room a colour she described as chartreuse. It triggered a love of the exotic; both the colour and the word have a sense of mystery.
What do you like best about this space?
Perhaps the restful sounds provided by the water gently trickling down the red glass wall finally splashing into the pool along with the soft rustle of the breeze blowing through the palms. Of course, the rich red which contrasts beautifully with the greenery is also a delight. With the awning extended there is no better place to be.
Keep sowing spring onions
Spring onions are such an easy crop to grow and tend to do well for much of the year so it makes sense to plant or sow seeds regularly. A bunch of five spring onions in the shops will set you back around $3, yet a packet of seed for the same price will give you 600.To grow your own, sow seeds direct in rows or blocks in a sunny spot, cover with soil, firm down gently and water in lightly using the fine mist setting on your hose. Seeds will germinate in around 10 days and can be thinned to 2cm apart to give them space to spread out. If you miss this step (and I admit I often do), it just means you will be harvesting slightly thinner onions in bunches rather than pulling out big, fat individual plants. Either way, the taste is the same. Harvest before they flower as they can become a bit woody and keep well watered. Heat-stressed spring onion plants are highly susceptible to aphid infestations.
Grow rhubarb and feed your existing plants
While there may be some plants that thrive without any added fertiliser, rhubarb isn’t one of them and in my experience, it will take everything you can give. Like asparagus, rhubarb is a long-term food crop and will go on providing stalks for many years once it gets established. Looking after it well in the first couple of years will ensure the crowns below are strong enough to allow for plentiful picking.I’ve been growing rhubarb in two very large planters for a few years after scoring a few crowns from my mum’s 50-year-old red-stemmed variety when she was dividing them and they’ve been happy in their new home here in Auckland. I keep mine well fed with regular applications of sheep pellets, fertiliser and castings and worm tea from my worm farm and keep the crowns mulched in summer (but not covering them completely in order to avoid rot).
Rhubarb is best planted during the cooler months of spring and autumn as it can struggle to establish in the heat of summer. If you don’t have access to crowns, your local garden centre will usually have single plants for sale or order a bundle of four plants online from Awapuni.co.nz.
Choose a sunny spot with welldrained, fertile soil, plant crowns 3-5cm deep and give them plenty of space to spread out. Rhubarb is a very large plant so it’s best given its own patch to grow in or at the very least, placed at the back of your garden so it’s out of the way. Resist the urge to harvest any stalks during that first year. To pick, gently pull and twist the outer stalks rather than cutting or snapping them off which can lead to fungal problems.
Sow green crops into empty beds
If you’re pulling out spent summer crops with no plans to replant, it’s a good idea to sow green crops to help replenish the soil. Vegetable gardening is incredibly intensive and many nutrients are lost during the cycle of planting and harvesting during the spring and summer months. Green crops are a great source of organic matter and sown in late summer or early autumn and then cut down and dug back into the soil and left to break down before spring. Many green crops are also legumes (such as blue lupins, red clover, broad beans and peas), which fix nitrogen in the soil once they die. This nitrogen then becomes available for your vege crops to use. The broken-down plant material also improves the structure of the soil in your garden and while the crops are growing, help to suppress weeds and protect the soil from erosion during wet winters.Sow green crop seed thickly now and then dig them in by mid-winter. Don’t let the plants flower or the stems will become too woody and tough and be nothing short of a mission to deal with.
Pull out tired crops and cut back rusted mint
It’s amazing how long some crops will hang on before succumbing to the heat of summer. I have a large wooden planter full of cavolo nero, sorrel, mint, Vietnamese mint and nasturtiums that up until last week were doing well and looking healthy. This week, they are all more than a little worse for wear. My mint plants look ghastly with their rusted leaves so have all been cut back to the ground, the kale has been pulled out and the sorrel has had a good thinning. This has freed up space so I’ll sow some fastgrowing coriander in there before the mint bursts back to life and overruns everything.
Plant lemongrass
Sometimes less is more and this is certainly true of zesty lemongrass. This clump-forming perennial grass is easy to grow and lasts for years so a single plant is all you’ll ever need. Grow in a sheltered spot in full sun with free-draining soil or keep it contained in a large pot. Lemongrass will enjoy being fed with a high-nitrogen liquid fertiliser when in its active growth phase in summer. I once planted a single lemongrass seedling in a half wine barrel where it grew and grew and grew until it occupied the entire thing. In the end it was well over 2m tall. Now that’s a big herb! – Rachel Oldham