In season
If space is at a premium, here are natives worth planting – plus a few exotics to set them off, says Neil Ross.
Neil Ross makes the case for our alpine native plants in small spaces.
That’s how we tend to mix things up both in our gardens and less happily in our wild landscapes: natives with exotics.
Ican only coax my family up mountains when there is a gondola involved and preferably a café at the top, but on those rare occasions when I’m alone in the uplands, the mountains lift me on every level, spiritually, emotionally and latitudinally. It’s the sort of euphoria that means I have to grab a rucksack and water bottle, and climb till I sweat. I guess it has a lot to do with the novelty of not living close to anything more than a hillock for most of the year.
There’s the natural euphoria too that wide open spaces produce in me, a sense of escape. It certainly has something to do with the idea of being out in something approaching wilderness – to see plants growing where they were meant to be. Sometimes in late summer, I’m lucky enough to be found taking a bunch of garden lovers around the South Island which is where this picture medley was snapped. I’ve popped some garden exotics among the wildlings because they look good together and that’s how I remember summer in Southland – a froth of white in blossom and berry.
That’s how we tend to mix things up both in our gardens and less happily in our wild landscapes: natives with exotics. It physically pains me to see the hillsides around Queenstown so infested now with invaders (like myself!); escapees such as dog rose, rowan, maples and hawthorn. Will those steep slopes ever be clawed back so the lower growing cushions of spiny spaniards and tussocks of Chionochloa and tiny cushions of harebell that have always lived there can spread their elbows out once again?
It reminds me to be responsible with what I grow in my own backyard: avoid the plants which can be carried away as berries in birds’ bellies or wind-blown seeds.
On tour, it’s hard to find space to escape the iron grip of the dreaded schedule (plenty of 6am starts) but there are slivers of time –
the very best bits of my trips – when I get to go rock-hopping and botanising. Flower foraging gives you such a spring in your step even if your legs hurt like crazy the next morning.
The coach driver has never consented to a stop at the head of Arthurs Pass where low tapestries of stringy hebes beckon me each year before flashing past, but on the west coast at the glacier valleys, there is always time to fall on your knees in wonder. Though the ice has gone shy and creeps further back into the wilderness each year, the little tough plants of boulder and riverbank remain so you can drool over a little epilobium clinging to a crevice in meltwater braiding or a nertera glistening with red berries beside the path.
Mount Cook provides the climatic pitstop and in late summer the herbfields are full of low shrubs and cushion plants – berries as much as flowers from mountain snowberry ( Gaultheria depressa) to the rosy baubles on matipo ( Myrsine nummularia) and very occasionally a ravishing rosette of celmisia nearer to the snow. Native plants demand that we get in close to enjoy the detail as from a distance they can look almost drab so the boardwalk is abandoned and treasure hunting begins.
It’s easy to get excited by alpines because they are bigheaded; in relation to their overall size they often have huge flowers. In addition, an intriguing truth is that they are coloured white above all else. In fact, a whopping 77 per cent of our alpine species have white flowers – well above the average of other countries. Botanists guess that the reason is a lack of diversity in our fly and moth pollinators caused by isolation. We also lack long-tongued bees which are naturally drawn to brighter colours. Where pollinators are many, specialism erupts and each plant can signal to their preferred specialist pollinator with a niche colour by investing resources and genetic diversity in fancy hues but with our alpines, beggars can’t be choosers so the glaring unsophistication of white is a one-size-fits-all come-on to all and sundry.
Our montane shrubs seem to follow suit but in summer, white is such a cooling colour wherever it is found, on shingly slopes or back home on level ground. In our own plots, we can pump up the action with a few well-chosen exotics such as Japanese anemones, hydrangeas and sweet-scented summer lilies.
The garden is certainly not the place to attempt a pastiche of our grandest natural landscapes – most mountain plants are just too fussy to make the move anyway.
Instead, I think of it as a floral postcard – a treasure trove of collected gems from near and far which have the power to transport me to places far wilder and more beautiful, on a higher level altogether.