New Zealand’s oldest houseplants
Jo McCarroll talks to five Kiwis who have living family heirlooms, with astonishingly long-lived houseplants which have been passed down through several generations.
Jo McCarroll speaks to five gardeners about their botanical heirlooms.
Gracie Fields is perhaps better known as a singer than for her botanical chops, but the lines of one of her popular numbers from the 1930s suggest the crooner knew a thing or two about plants. The song, The Biggest Aspidistra in the World, is about an aspidistra, grown for years in a flower pot on a hatstand, which eventually gets planted out in the garden. And next thing you know, “It shot up like a rocket, ‘til it’s nearly reached the sky”.
And while there might be a touch of horticultural hyperbole in the details, it’s true that aspidistras are remarkably tough and vigorous plants.
Take Gracie the aspidistra – named after Gracie Fields, naturally – a 104-year-old pot plant currently residing in Marilyn and Millar Henderson’s lounge in Timaru.
The aspidistra was given to Maud Henderson, Millar’s mother, in 1916 as an engagement gift. It might not be the biggest aspidistra in the world, but over its long life, it has shown exceptionally vigorous growth, Marilyn and Millar’s son Mark says. “When I was a small boy in the early 1970s, I can remember it being huge, taking up nearly a third of the substantial lounge!”
When his grandmother died, the plant was overlooked for a time but managed to survive a period of no water and no light, before Marilyn rescued it.
“My mother somehow managed to revive the plant and it is still going strong,” Mark says.
Cuttings have already been passed on to Mark, his sister Kathy and his cousin Mandy.
“We all have got little Gracies. Our one is not so little anymore though.”
And cuttings have gone to other residents of the retirement village where Marilyn and Millar live too, Mark says.
“Gracie is a bit famous there.”
Stu Vaughan is the current custodian of Milly the fern – named after his grandmother, Millicent, who brought it to New Zealand (by boat) when she and Stu’s grandfather emigrated here from Cornwall at some time in the 1920s.
“So we don’t know exactly how old it is,” Stu admits. “My dad was born in Gisborne in 1927, so my grandparents arrived before that. But she might have had the fern for a few years by then.”
The Boston fern not only had to survive the five-week voyage, it then tiki-toured around New Zealand as his grandparents moved to Gisborne, then Kaitaia, before settling in Milford on Auckland’s North Shore where they had an apple orchard.
Stu’s first memories of the plant are of it on a high stool in the sun room at their home there. “I loved looking at it. Grandma used to have it flowing right down to the ground. I can’t make it do that.”
When his grandparents passed away, the fern went to Stu’s mother who divided it into several plants, giving Stu one piece. “It had outgrown the pot it was in by long way,” he explains. “But my bit was the only bit that survived! It probably needs repotting again but I’m too scared to touch it.”
Right now the fern sits on a concrete plinth in the living room of Stu’s Castor Bay home, and it is thriving despite being roughly 100 years old.
“Grandma used to feed it cold tea and I’ve kept that up when I remember,” he says.
He‘s hoping to be able to hand it on to the next generation – his daughter-in-law loves plants and would put her hand up for it, he thinks.
“I don’t know how long it will go for, but it’s part of our history now.”
Having a living link with his beloved grandparents is pretty special, he says. “Grandma would be over the moon to think the fern was still alive. She loved it.”
Exactly when the aspidistra, currently growing under the back steps of Melanie Karst’s Lyttelton home, entered the family is a little unclear. Melanie’s grandmother Nilla Morriss told Melanie that she remembered it growing in a fancy jardinière at her mother Amelia Brooker’s home on the family farm in Lyndhurst in mid Canterbury. So Melanie knows it was once owned by her great-grandmother.
“But actually I inherited two fancy jardinières from my grandmother Nilla, and I know one was actually her grandmother’s so maybe the aspidistra originally belonged to my great-greatgrandmother?” Melanie speculates. “Sadly there’s no-one left who can confirm that.”
What is known is that when Amelia and her husband Edgar sold the farm, they – and the aspidistra – moved in to a home in Ashburton. When their daughter Nilla’s marriage ended, she and her children moved back in with them, and when Amelia and Edgar died, Nilla inherited the house and the plant. “My grandmother never threw anything out, and just lived in her parents’ home as it was, so the house was almost like a time warp,” Melanie says. “The aspidistra sat in a corner of the sun room. I remember it as a child.”
Eventually it was moved out into the garden of the Ashburton property where it grew behind the garage until Melanie rescued it 20-odd years ago (Nilla died in 2003).
Melanie had it inside for a while, but it got too big – “it’s huge now, if you put your arms around it, your hands wouldn’t touch” – so she moved it to its current position under the steps. “I give it a flick of water every now and again. It’s a bit yellow and tattered in its leaves but it’s still going. When I leave this property I am definitely taking it with me. It’s just incredible. Amelia and Nilla would be just thrilled to see it still going strong.”
Jo Thorburn’s maidenhair fern has been in her family since her grandmother, Jean Penman, was gifted it as a 21st birthday present in 1936. Jean looked after it for 36 years until she died in 1972, aged just 57, at which point the fern – now referred to by the whole family as the Mother Fern – went to her daughter, Jo’s mother Carrol Harnish.
“And mum really cherished it,” Jo says. “She gave cuttings to her friends. When she went away, someone had to look after the Mother Fern. It was almost treated like a family pet.”
Carrol kept the fern on a covered deck at her home. When she moved to a retirement village, it moved too. Regular feeds of chicken poo saw it grow so big it had to be repotted several times, eventually into a halfwine barrel in which it still grows.
And when Carrol died suddenly in 2017, the fern was transported from the retirement home – “luckily they had a lift there,” Jo says – to the local bridge club and it was in the front row while the funeral service took place.
“It meant so much to our family and was such a big part of my mum’s life,” Jo explains.
After the funeral, the fern moved to Jo’s Whangaparaoa property. Her husband Michael built a roofed shelter for it next to their spa pool, so it enjoys dappled light, and the half-wine barrel (now starting to fall apart) sits on a lazy susan which Jo turns once a week so the whole plant gets adequate light. She also gives it “two massive buckets” of water every two days, and if she and Michael are away, someone is charged with the responsibility of its care (including video updates of it for Jo).
“I was four when my grandmother died,” Jo says. “But I was close to her. So it’s pretty neat to have this still. We have a little grandson now and he has just turned two. He knows all about the Mother Fern. Every time
I go to water it, he helps, and he pats the fronds and has a wee chat to it.”
Anne Weir’s hoya originally belonged to her grandmother, Jessie Watchorn. She’s not completely sure when Jessie acquired it, but she remembers when her grandparents built a new home in Palmerston North in 1962, there was an alcove built into one of the walls in the front room in which it sat.
“That’s when I first remember the plant from, mainly because of its amazing flowers,” Anne says. “But of course she might have had it for some time in the old house before that.”
When her grandmother went into care in the 1970s, the hoya was taken on by her greenfingered son-in-law, Anne’s father Alan Weir. He grew it in his study on a windowsill behind his desk. The hoya thrived in this situation; eventually entwining itself completely into the venetian blinds behind. “In about 1993, Dad and I had to give it a big haircut to set it free.
“I took some of the cuttings home and potted them up and shared them around various people, including my aunt. I ended up taking one into my work at Massey University too. That plant is still with me, 25 years on, and it has moved offices with me at least seven or eight times.”
Soon after her father died in 2007, Anne discovered her grandmother’s original hoya. It had been moved from the study out into the garden and was not looking too healthy, she says.
“So I said well it’s up to me now. The baton has been handed on.”
That plant is now thriving in the dining room of her Awapuni home (and its offspring, frequently given away by Anne as rooted cuttings, have spread far and wide).
“I walk past it and it reminds me so much of my nana and my dad,” she says. “It’s a plant with so much history. I know it will be passed on when I can no longer look after it. And I think my grandmother would be pleased something that she had and cherished is still being cherished today.”