Bay of Plenty
What do you do when 5000 potted plants are carried away by flood waters and your property’s covered in debris?
Sandra Simpson visits the iris nursery that survived a flood.
If you’re Wendy Begbie of the Amazing Iris Garden, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. “We had huge heavy machinery tyres all wired together, we had pine needles a couple of inches thick, silt, silage and foliage debris of all kinds, and fences taken out,” she recalls. “And we never had wandering willie in the garden before; now the bottom terrace is full of it.”
It was the result of the heavy rain which fell over Queen’s Birthday weekend, particularly on the Sunday when 122mm of rain (53mm in one hour!) closed State Highway 2 in Katikati and flooded the streams that flow from the Kaimai Range into Tauranga Harbour, including the tributary of the Whatakao Stream that runs through Wendy’s property.
“Essentially, all my commercial and retail stock disappeared downstream,” Wendy says. “We had 500 potted irises left but we could only sell them at a discount as we couldn’t guarantee what they were.”
So if you noticed a shortage of irises for sale this spring, that’s why.
The Amazing Iris Garden, the largest iris nursery in New Zealand, has been supplying garden centres for five years. Situated south of Katikati, it is home to 1300 varieties comprising all sizes of bearded, Louisiana, Siberian and Japanese irises. The garden welcomes visitors in flowering season to stroll the terraces and enjoy the massed plantings of field-grown plants – median bearded and tall bearded are on the top terrace, tall bearded and dwarf irises on the second and third terraces, with Louisiana, Japanese and Siberian irises beside the bottom paddocks.
Amazingly, the bedded irises on that level all hung on, although every name stake disappeared. “We always have a ‘map’ of the beds as an insurance policy, which has helped,” Wendy says.
Louisiana irises like growing in water and they fared the best of all.
In fact, “they were laughing,” says garden manager Sophie Cottrell.
Wendy, who is also the national product manager and is often away, says the property wouldn’t have recovered as well or as quickly without Sophie’s energy and focus. “I didn’t know where to begin or even if I wanted to begin, but Sophie just powered into it. She was an inspiration.”
Louisiana irises, which have daylilylike foliage, are a relatively new addition to the garden.
Wendy bought the stock when local breeder Stephanie Boot retired four years ago. She is also working on importing seed from Australia.
“The Louisianas are a bit more versatile in that they’ll tolerate a normal garden situation, but they’ll also grow with their feet in a pond,” she says.
Native to the wetlands of Louisiana in the US, the iris rhizomes are often covered with shallow water during the growing season but are dry during their summer dormancy, although protected by natural mulch. They flower at the same time as the early tall bearded irises.
Meanwhile, Wendy has put the unfortunate deluge behind her and replanted the flooded area, although she’s waiting for autumn to regrass a walkway that remains closed.
“I said, ‘I’m not going to plant down there because what if it floods again’. Then I went a bit crazy and bought some Japanese maple trees… so now it’s a maple garden,” she adds. “It’s a kind of tribute to the Japanese irises which all hung on through the flood – not one of them pulled out.”