I have a number of gardener/writer heroes. In 'My Favourite Garden Books' I collate my reviews from the blog.
My cottage garden of native plants
The space between our Diamond Harbour cottage and the ugly side of the neighbour's house is only 5 metres. We have beautified it with a range of native plants, seen here through my study window on a rainy December day. The plants include rengarenga lilies, red-flowering manuka, white-flowering putaputaweta/marbleleaf, cabage trees, makomako/wineberry, mahoe, purple-flowered hebes, and titoki.
The space between our Diamond Harbour cottage and the ugly side of the neighbour's house is only 5 metres. We have beautified it with a range of native plants, seen here through my study window on a rainy December day. The plants include rengarenga lilies, red-flowering manuka, white-flowering putaputaweta/marbleleaf, cabage trees, makomako/wineberry, mahoe, purple-flowered hebes, and titoki.
A Grove of Essential Native Plant Books (and where they grow)
All Eco-Gardeners, wherever they may be, need a good set of reference books to help them identify and grow the indigenous flora of their land. Ecosystem gardening obviously starts with the respecting and maintaining the original ecosystem where the garden is located, if it is still in existence, or restoring as much as possible if it is not.
In New Zealand we are fortunate in having a great diversity of evergreen broadleaf trees and shrubs in our indigenous flora, many of them with attractive flowers as well, so it is easy to design a beautiful and easy-care garden which is green all year, and floriferous most of the year, using only native plants. Native trees and shrubs also make great hedges, or more informal protective boundaries to a property, which can double as wildlife refuges. Or native plants can mix and mingle very well with exotic plants in a pleasure garden, attracting more birds and butterflies than exotics alone, and anchoring the garden securely and confidently in its native land.
The only thing that holds the gardener back from making such gardens is a good knowledge of the native plants and how to grow them, and this is where the need for reference books comes in. In New Zealand there are some classics which no home should be without. Some of them are no longer in print, so you will need to look for them second-hand. If I didn't already own the books I am about to mention, I would be giving the hunt-and-peck method that is Trade Me a miss and going straight to the on-line catalogue of an excellent second-hand book shop, such as Jason Books.
Jason Books' stock currently includes the two essential books for those who want to know how to grow native plants, L.J. Metcalf's The Cultivation of New Zealand Trees and Shrubs and The Propagation of New Zealand Trees and Shrubs. A former curator of the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, and before that of the Invercargill Botanic Gardens, Lawrie Metcalf is a great native plantsman who has written the definitive books on how to grow the full range of garden-worthy trees and shrubs successfully. For beginners these books get one off to a good start; more advanced gardeners who want to increase their native plants inexpensively will make good use of the propagation book.
For those who are looking for garden design ideas as well as cultivation information the must-have classic is Gardening with New Zealand Plants, Shrubs and Trees by Muriel Fisher, E. Satchell and Janet Watkins. This book has gone through several editions since it was first published in 1970, each one expanding slightly on the first one, and all of them illustrated with photographs taken in Fernglen, Muriel Fisher's extensive all-native garden on Auckland's North Shore. If Metcalf is New Zealand's pre-eminent public gardener with native plants, Fisher is the private native gardener par excellence. Her book shows what is possible when native plants are treated as gardenworthy subjects in their own right, suitable for creating every desirable garden feature, from shady groves through flowering borders to rock or water gardens.
New Zealand's native plants have a 'deep history' which they share with the other flora of the ancient super-continent Gondwana, which began to break up some 167 million years ago. New Zealand broke off from what is now Antarctica thirty to fifty million years after that, and Australia some few million years after New Zealand. At a rock fall in central Otago I have seen fossils of leaves which look like casuarinas, which are common in Australia today but are no longer growing in New Zealand. In the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, running along the native garden side of the avenue of lime (linden) trees is a collection of well-grown Nothofagus trees from Australia, Chile and New Caledonia. The Nothofagus is our native 'beech' tree, species of which are also native to other former Gondwana countries. All this plant history and more can be found in the The Looking Glass Garden Plants and Gardens of the Southern Hemisphere by Peter Thompson, along with excellent illustrative photographs taken in public and private gardens and the wild in New Zealand, Australia, and southern Africa. There are also photographs of 'Gondwana' plants growing well in gardens in the UK and USA, for as the title of the book suggests, Thompson is not native to anywhere in the southern hemisphere. He has had to learn how to grow southern plants in the more challenging conditions of Britain. Sometimes it takes a foreigner to point out what treasures we have on our doorstep, often neglected or taken for granted. Thompson has done gardeners and plant lovers in both hemispheres a great service by writing this book, which is equal parts information and inspiration.
* * * * * * * * * * *
All Eco-Gardeners, wherever they may be, need a good set of reference books to help them identify and grow the indigenous flora of their land. Ecosystem gardening obviously starts with the respecting and maintaining the original ecosystem where the garden is located, if it is still in existence, or restoring as much as possible if it is not.
In New Zealand we are fortunate in having a great diversity of evergreen broadleaf trees and shrubs in our indigenous flora, many of them with attractive flowers as well, so it is easy to design a beautiful and easy-care garden which is green all year, and floriferous most of the year, using only native plants. Native trees and shrubs also make great hedges, or more informal protective boundaries to a property, which can double as wildlife refuges. Or native plants can mix and mingle very well with exotic plants in a pleasure garden, attracting more birds and butterflies than exotics alone, and anchoring the garden securely and confidently in its native land.
The only thing that holds the gardener back from making such gardens is a good knowledge of the native plants and how to grow them, and this is where the need for reference books comes in. In New Zealand there are some classics which no home should be without. Some of them are no longer in print, so you will need to look for them second-hand. If I didn't already own the books I am about to mention, I would be giving the hunt-and-peck method that is Trade Me a miss and going straight to the on-line catalogue of an excellent second-hand book shop, such as Jason Books.
Jason Books' stock currently includes the two essential books for those who want to know how to grow native plants, L.J. Metcalf's The Cultivation of New Zealand Trees and Shrubs and The Propagation of New Zealand Trees and Shrubs. A former curator of the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, and before that of the Invercargill Botanic Gardens, Lawrie Metcalf is a great native plantsman who has written the definitive books on how to grow the full range of garden-worthy trees and shrubs successfully. For beginners these books get one off to a good start; more advanced gardeners who want to increase their native plants inexpensively will make good use of the propagation book.
For those who are looking for garden design ideas as well as cultivation information the must-have classic is Gardening with New Zealand Plants, Shrubs and Trees by Muriel Fisher, E. Satchell and Janet Watkins. This book has gone through several editions since it was first published in 1970, each one expanding slightly on the first one, and all of them illustrated with photographs taken in Fernglen, Muriel Fisher's extensive all-native garden on Auckland's North Shore. If Metcalf is New Zealand's pre-eminent public gardener with native plants, Fisher is the private native gardener par excellence. Her book shows what is possible when native plants are treated as gardenworthy subjects in their own right, suitable for creating every desirable garden feature, from shady groves through flowering borders to rock or water gardens.
New Zealand's native plants have a 'deep history' which they share with the other flora of the ancient super-continent Gondwana, which began to break up some 167 million years ago. New Zealand broke off from what is now Antarctica thirty to fifty million years after that, and Australia some few million years after New Zealand. At a rock fall in central Otago I have seen fossils of leaves which look like casuarinas, which are common in Australia today but are no longer growing in New Zealand. In the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, running along the native garden side of the avenue of lime (linden) trees is a collection of well-grown Nothofagus trees from Australia, Chile and New Caledonia. The Nothofagus is our native 'beech' tree, species of which are also native to other former Gondwana countries. All this plant history and more can be found in the The Looking Glass Garden Plants and Gardens of the Southern Hemisphere by Peter Thompson, along with excellent illustrative photographs taken in public and private gardens and the wild in New Zealand, Australia, and southern Africa. There are also photographs of 'Gondwana' plants growing well in gardens in the UK and USA, for as the title of the book suggests, Thompson is not native to anywhere in the southern hemisphere. He has had to learn how to grow southern plants in the more challenging conditions of Britain. Sometimes it takes a foreigner to point out what treasures we have on our doorstep, often neglected or taken for granted. Thompson has done gardeners and plant lovers in both hemispheres a great service by writing this book, which is equal parts information and inspiration.
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| A garden based on river stones, and granite slabs recycled from building demolitions, designed by Roberto Burle Marx for the grounds of the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janiero, Brazil. |
Roberto Burle Marx
Marta Iris Montero, trans. Ann Wright (2001)
Burle Marx The Lyrical Landscape
London: Thames and Hudson
Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) was a genius of landscape and garden design, and in his latter years a hero of plant conservation and propagation as well. Since he was Brazilian, and most of his work was done in Brazil, I never expected to see it for myself, but only to understand how great he was from photographs. Then in July 2005 I was lucky enough to have my way paid to Brazil to attend a workshop on global food issues. I had no time or money for making garden visit detours, and it was only by sheer serendipity that on my very last day in Rio de Janiero I walked along Flamengo beach to the Museum of Modern Art and found myself in a Burle Marx garden.
It was then I realised that to see a picture of a garden, and to actually be in one, is as different as hearing a recording of a symphony orchestra or choir is from attending a live concert. Real plants and stones and wood and water breathe their essence into the ambient air and so into us, just as real instruments and voices send vibrations that pass through the air that passes through us. This is literally, physically moving - emotional - in a way that representations can never be. Before, I knew in my head that Burle Marx was a genius; now, I know in my heart.
What does Burle Marx do that is so wonderful, and how did he come to do it? Marta Iris Montero is an Argentinian landscape designer who worked with Burle Marx in the 1970s and came to admire him greatly, as a designer and as a man of many full and generous parts. Her book is a good brief introduction to his life and to his work, well illustrated with photographs, and with Burle Marx's plans and designs, which are like paintings in their own right. Pages 72-75 cover the design and construction of the garden at the Museum of Modern Art in 1954, and show different views of the granite slabs and river stones from the photos which I took (above).
Burle Marx was a Modernist, by timing, temperament and training. I find myself puzzling over why his work appeals so much to me, when I don't care much for Modernism in art and architecture, nor in the work of other garden designers. Partly it is because he was a great Modernist, who exemplified all that was good about this twentieth century stylistic movement, but mainly it is because he knew and loved and chose and arranged his plants so well. He went on plant collecting expeditions in Brazil, and there are 30 species named after him. At his home and estate (which are now national monuments) he grew thousands and thousands of different types of plants, mostly those native to Brazil. He was a great artist who was also a great eco-gardener.
In his later years, and with failing eyesight, he once dictated a letter to Montero in which he said ''I live in a state of continual discovery in response to nature and the people who live on the margins of the world.'' (p. 13) What a great way for a gardener to live, in Aotearoa just as much as in Brazil. There are huge amounts that any would-be-good gardener can learn from Burle Marx, and Montero's book is a big aid to helping us do so.
Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) was a genius of landscape and garden design, and in his latter years a hero of plant conservation and propagation as well. Since he was Brazilian, and most of his work was done in Brazil, I never expected to see it for myself, but only to understand how great he was from photographs. Then in July 2005 I was lucky enough to have my way paid to Brazil to attend a workshop on global food issues. I had no time or money for making garden visit detours, and it was only by sheer serendipity that on my very last day in Rio de Janiero I walked along Flamengo beach to the Museum of Modern Art and found myself in a Burle Marx garden.
It was then I realised that to see a picture of a garden, and to actually be in one, is as different as hearing a recording of a symphony orchestra or choir is from attending a live concert. Real plants and stones and wood and water breathe their essence into the ambient air and so into us, just as real instruments and voices send vibrations that pass through the air that passes through us. This is literally, physically moving - emotional - in a way that representations can never be. Before, I knew in my head that Burle Marx was a genius; now, I know in my heart.
What does Burle Marx do that is so wonderful, and how did he come to do it? Marta Iris Montero is an Argentinian landscape designer who worked with Burle Marx in the 1970s and came to admire him greatly, as a designer and as a man of many full and generous parts. Her book is a good brief introduction to his life and to his work, well illustrated with photographs, and with Burle Marx's plans and designs, which are like paintings in their own right. Pages 72-75 cover the design and construction of the garden at the Museum of Modern Art in 1954, and show different views of the granite slabs and river stones from the photos which I took (above).
Burle Marx was a Modernist, by timing, temperament and training. I find myself puzzling over why his work appeals so much to me, when I don't care much for Modernism in art and architecture, nor in the work of other garden designers. Partly it is because he was a great Modernist, who exemplified all that was good about this twentieth century stylistic movement, but mainly it is because he knew and loved and chose and arranged his plants so well. He went on plant collecting expeditions in Brazil, and there are 30 species named after him. At his home and estate (which are now national monuments) he grew thousands and thousands of different types of plants, mostly those native to Brazil. He was a great artist who was also a great eco-gardener.
In his later years, and with failing eyesight, he once dictated a letter to Montero in which he said ''I live in a state of continual discovery in response to nature and the people who live on the margins of the world.'' (p. 13) What a great way for a gardener to live, in Aotearoa just as much as in Brazil. There are huge amounts that any would-be-good gardener can learn from Burle Marx, and Montero's book is a big aid to helping us do so.
