A cottage charmer in Central Otago
A private and secluded Karitane garden is filled with flowers that keep blooming through the hot, dry Central summers.
Private and secluded Karitane garden that keeps on blooming.
“I try to keep the garden as close to nature as possible… If something pops up and doesn’t interfere with anything else, I’ll let it grow as long as it behaves.”
Seats are dotted everywhere in Maggie McDonald’s Karitane garden, each one strategically placed to gaze out on to a different vista of the garden. “What’s the point of having a garden if you cannot appreciate its beauty,” Maggie states. “After I do a stint of weeding, I make sure I sit and take it all in, which is often done with a book and drink in hand.”
After her recent retirement, Maggie now spends most fine days amongst her colourful creation. It was only 10 years ago, however, that she could really start to devote time to her gardening passion – after finishing as a horse riding trail boss with the Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust – to create the current cottage-style garden which now fills, spills and spreads through the space. Maggie though considers it to be simply a “New Zealand garden”. “I just grow plants that I like, and most importantly what grows well here and can handle the hot dry summers,” she says.
A kōwhai at the front of the house is the single plant that remains from Maggie’s 1986 purchase of the fully furnished property. Full of couch, flax and toitoi out the front of the cottage, with more of the same – plus the addition of potatoes – out the back, she credits many trailer loads of horse manure for slowly helping to recondition the depleted soil. Regular application of bags of manure remain one of her top tips for maintaining healthy soil.
Roses were her first love but she was unable to give them the attention they both demanded and deserved while working full-time on shifts as a registered psychopaedic nurse. But in 2008, with more time available, the current garden started to come to life, slowing turning her original dream into reality.
Now foxglove, lupin, iris, border phlox, lilies and hosta coexist intimately in the space, complementing each other in a grand collaborative display. “I like all the mix of colours in the garden, especially the pinks, whites and blues, and the changing palette from the daffodils in the spring to the deep blue aconite and sedums in the autumn,” she says.
Maggie’s favourites for the hot dry summers include scaevola that flowers for months on the dry sunny bank by the road and achillea – she has 18 varieties. She is also happy to use annuals if required, and appreciates petunias for their ability to cope with long sunny days and their lengthy flowering period.
The range of colours is extended through the deep purple and white lupins dotted around, and which Maggie appreciates for the structure they provide the space. In practising her mantra of letting the garden be itself and not too controlled, she allows lupins to self-seed.
“I try to keep the garden as close to nature as possible and don’t force it into formal lines,” she explains. “If something pops up and doesn’t interfere with
Foxglove, lupin, iris, border phlox, lilies and hosta coexist intimately in the space, complementing each other in a grand collaborative display.
anything else, then I’ll let it grow as long as it behaves.”
Maggie also keeps the lupins and foxgloves flowering for an extended period through diligent deadheading, allowing new shoots to form.
But it’s the irises that are the jewels of this Otago coastal garden. Her fascination started after she spotted a spectacular display on the side of a road about three years ago. Now a member of the Otago Iris Club, Maggie has 40 different Siberian iris dotted through the space. She refers to the flowers affectionately as “little butterflies”.
“I grow Siberian iris because I love the blooms and they are trouble free,” she explains, adding that contrary to popular belief, iris don’t need to stand in water, and so long as they are not left to dry out and are mulched fairly heavily, they manage well in her drought prone garden. Irises on show range from the small variegated varieties ‘Shaker’s Prayer’ and ‘Pennywhistle’ to the tall Spuria, and the smaller Pacific Coast and Louisiana iris. Other favourites include ‘Silver Edge’, ‘White Swirl’, ‘Sultan’s Ruby’, ‘Castlegrace’, ‘Blackberry Jubilee’, ‘Imperial Opal’ and ‘How Audacious’. Even when they stop flowering, their grassy clumps remain attractive and a good backdrop for other blooms.
While Christmas and the summer months are the
She has begun to tidy up some of the clumps of iris to make room for roses; she has a penchant for the old-fashioned, aromatic David Austin varieties.
time of the garden’s colourful peak, the shoulder seasons produce their own charm. Dwarf daffodil ‘Thalia’ is a spring favourite with several flowers on a stem and a lengthy flowering period, and asters and alstroemerias provide autumn colour.
When autumn turns to winter, the branches of the golden willow on the rear boundary of the garden turn a golden yellow, and along with the red akeake, look like they could “burst into flames” during the first rays of winter’s morning sun.
It’s the privacy of the rear garden that provides the oasis that Maggie gravitates to, often reclining in her lounger with her two Hungarian Vizsla dogs beside her. Merlin and Nimue are also partial to eating couch grass, so proactively contribute to keeping weeds at bay.
With the luxury of more time, Maggie has also been able to revisit her original love for the roses that are reappearing in the garden. In particular, she has begun to revamp and tidy up some of the clumps of iris to make room for roses; she has a penchant for the old-fashioned, aromatic David Austin varieties.
She has also been adding hostas for their interesting foliage, and out of the 26 varieties in the garden so far, she particularly likes ‘White Feather’ and Hosta fortunei var. albopicta.
Early mornings are a particularly peaceful time when Maggie wanders around the garden with a coffee in hand, reflecting on her good fortune in being surrounded by the colour and beauty of nature.
“When I was young, I could never understand how my mother got on her hands and knees to weed, I thought it was so boring,” she recalls with a laugh. With weeding now part of her daily life, albeit broken up with regular breaks on one of the many garden seats or on the lounger with a good book, surely she can now appreciate the irony of that youthful thought.