Snow fuchsia

Snow-covered fuchsia branches bend across a creek

New Zealand has very few native deciduous trees, but one of the few we do have, the kotukutuku or tree fuchsia, has much to recommend it. I have already blogged about how good it is to have in the garden in summer, when its sweet berries are excellent food for bellbirds (and not bad for humans either).

But perhaps it is in winter that this little tree really proves its garden worthyness, since the loss of leaves exposes its distinctive pale red-brown bark, which peels away to reveal greenish new bark beneath. It typically grows in quite twisted and contorted ways, and when snow falls on the almost horizontal branches, as it did last month, the contrast is striking and appealing.

After the big snow at the end of July had stopped falling and the sun had come out again I took a walk up the road to a grove of kotukutuku, and took these photos of just how good they can look with a white 'coat'.