Native Plants In Your Garden

Forest and Bird, Issue 153, 1 August 1964, Page 15

Native Plants In Your Garden

By

J. S. Howard

“Our flora is famous the world over. Nor is this to be wondered at when it is remembered that more than four-fifths of the flowering plants are to be found growing wild in no other land; they are, indeed, true New Zealanders. Then there is the array of forms these plants have assumed, so distinct and betraying such different origins. What a surprising plant population is this of the isolated antipodean land, embracing as it does amongst its members great tree daisies, giant yellow and white buttercups, arboreal lilies, bayonet-like Spaniards, yellow and bronze forget-me-nots, huge mountain marguerites, vegetable sheep, evergreen trees of many kinds, shrubs of varied aspects, and the dainty herbaceous or partly wooded plants—most precious of all—which dwell near the perpetual snows.”

Sir Leonard Cockayne, one of New Zealand’s foremost botanists, wrote these words in 1924 as the opening paragraph of his excellent book for the “native gardener” called The Cultivation of New Zealand Plants. From the presentday viewpoint I would change that first short sentence slightly to read "Our flora is famous the world over except in its own country.” There is a sad lack of appreciation in this country of our remarkable flora and its garden value “natives”, when mentioned as such, seem to evoke the same response as a “made in N.Z.” trademark; you can sense the unspoken “well, how can it be any good?” There is no justification for this attitude in either case, and in the course of a short series of articles I hope to show you something of the richness and uniqueness of our flora, and why so many native plants should be generally cultivated in our gardens to give New Zealand horticulture a national identity of its own. I have been particularly lucky in becoming “mad on natives” early in life, catching the germ from my father, who fenced in an area of sparse titoki bush below the garden to regenerate it with a few of all the major native

forest trees. Before long, however, the original plan snowballed into the collecting and growing of any and all natives. This interest has brought us into contact with several other like-minded people, every one of whom is equally frustrated at the wonderful wealth of indigenous plant material which is “born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air”.

Neither is there any difficulty in cultivating these plants. Any such difficulty might give an excuse for their neglect. Some admittedly are temperamental, befitting their primadonna status, but a great number of useful garden shrubs belong to the genera Hebe, Olearia, and Senecio are very easily propagated by cuttings and grow in almost any soil and situation, often preferring dry conditions. Many of this group are also quick growing and thus make an excellent selection for quickly covering and brightening up a new section.

A comment in a New Zealand gardening book about one of our more spectacular shrubs, Chordospartium stevensonii, one of the native brooms, struck me as a grave indictment of this country’s apathy towards its own plants. The comment was that this plant had the distinction of having been grown and of having flowered in England before New Zealanders were aware of its existence. This, although a most glaring example of the appreciation of our plants overseas compared with their neglect at home, is far from an isolated case. Recently I looked through the index numbers of the journal of the Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain from 1950 to the present, and I found that in that period 195 New Zealand natives had been mentioned in their articles, 35 of them in more than three different years, and, moreover, 21 of them had received the Award of Merit, the Society’s highest award for plants of exceptional garden merit. Now, to come down to New Zealand terms, 36 of the above total of 195 are occasionally seen in our gardens, 11 of the 35 mentioned in more than three different years, and only 6 of the 21 holders of the Award of Merit. . -

So much for the past and the present. In successive articles we shall look at some of the plants in question, and do as much as we can to give them the treatment they deserve.