Broadfield Garden, Christchurch - An inspiration for planning a garden using natives

A visit to Broadfield Garden on the outskirts of Christchurch is truly inspiring for anyone looking for new ideas for a garden, especially their unusual use of natives to create herbaceous borders. I wanted to see the garden for this herbaceous border but found lots of other handy information for planning a planting for bees and insects.

On one side of the property a massive macrocarpa hedge shelters the garden, on the left is Peter and right is Dave Falls. 

We were privileged to be given an hour long personal tour of the gardens by gardener/builder/sculptor Dave Falls who has worked in the gardens for 11 years.

Peter (left) Humphrey the Spaniel centre and Dave Falls (right)
Behind them is a cotoneaster that Dave says always attracts
the cameras because of its striking topiary presence.

 The 3.5 hectare garden is owned by David Hobbs and the original design was by landscape architect, Robert Watson.
Robert was given a flat paddock to start with.  Owner, David Hobbs chose this property for the garden for one reason the soil.  Dave told us there is about 40 cm of River silt, and under that about 60 cm of clay and then river gravel.  This soil combination gives plants excellent growing conditions because of a good combination of free draining soil and good mineral availability in the clay. Kauri's and Totaras putting on half a metre of growth a year.

Native Herbaceous Borders

A red seat placed at the edge of the native herbaceous border.

I didn't take many photos of the herbaceous border because I was so intent on just observing the combinations of native plantings, plus I knew any wide shot photo of the two six metre by 120 metres long beds would undersell the garden.  It's something you just have to experience.  Originally this area was designed to have typical perennial herbaceous plants but David wanted to create a garden that could be maintained by one person. As he loved natives he decided to design and plant out this area in a native herbaceous border with taller plants in the back and smaller in the front.  He added some taller to the front to add variety and even has topiary columns of Totara. He discovered natives were far from limiting especially with the range of textures, forms and colours.

Divaricating Plants

Dave pointed out that Ireland has 42 shades of green but New Zealand has 52 shades of green.  It's not just the different greens but looking at the border you see foliage and fruits that add lots of colour.  But really where it wins hands down over a standard herbaceous border is the year round fullness and the variety of textures and colours. Just like managing a herbaceous border Dave told us they have to be a little ruthless and when a plant has started to get woody or too big out it comes.  Hebes are the only plants they propagate on site because they are the easiest plant to grow by cuttings in a pumice medium.

The lower half of the branch has the remainder of the juvenile form while the top has
oblong glossy olive green leaves.  Its  clusters of drooping white flowers appear from October
 and fruits until at least March.

New Zealand has the highest number of divaricating plants where the immature form present themselves as if they have had a bad hair day.  Under the messy tangle of tiny leaves there is often coloured stems that can catch your eye in the border.  I was intrigued by a divaricating tree I hadn't met before, Pokaka Elaeocarpus hookerianus. It's so helpful to see both the immature and mature tree forms in a garden like this.

1.8 kilometres of Totara hedging are bordering the gardens

Native Hedging

I think one of the most impressive points of the garden were the perfect Totara hedges. Dave tells us they are strong, nothing will eat them, you can cut quite severely and a Totara hedge will bounce back everytime. They can grow up to .5 a metre a year but saying that these hedges were started 20 years ago. One thing they do require is shelter, so at Broadfield they first planted poplar hedges to protect early hedges. Once the native plantings were established they were cut down.  The secret to such a compact hedge is close planting and cutting from the very start to encourage new spreading growth.

Perfectly presented Totara hedges border most of the garden rooms.
This is the entrance garden with Oaks in the centre underplanted in grey green grasses.

An area of curved Miro hedging with a sitting area. There are lots of
places to sit, rest and enjoy the gardens.  any Permaculturalist would approve of that.

There are other hedges made from Miro and Corokia. Dave says they have not been as successful as Totara because they get untidy very quickly and therefore need more work.  The Corokia hedges looked good but I felt it was a shame to reduce the amount of berries for the birds by hedging.

Topiary

As I mentioned in the Herbaceous border there were topiary columns of Totara but there are other examples of fun with trees especially with this topiary form that uses two trees to create different tiers using Griselinia and Totara.

Planting for Insects and Birds

What I didn't expect to find were a number of ideas for planting for birds and insects.  I absolutely loved all the varieties of small fruiting trees that provide the smaller sour fruit that birds prefer (and make amazing jellies).

A late yellow with a flush of red Crabapple still with an abundance of fruit.

There was also a small red variety of Crabapple

The red Japonica apple tree is also good for jelly making. It's a messy looking tree with tangled branches
but small birds like messy tangled trees for their nests. The flowers are an attractive intense red as above.

Nandina domestica "Richmond" looked like a good plant for birds but isn't.

It appears not all berries are equal.  I spied this Nandina in the gardens and thought yes a shrub that can grow as an understory in my food forest but upon investigation I discovered the berries are poisonous and most birds don't touch it.  It grows a little like bamboo on single stems and is attractive  in winter but won't have a place in my garden design because it only passes on attractiveness - nothing else.  I could use Corokia instead although  there are only a few berries left at this time of the year.

I smelt this Daphne before I saw it.

Dave pointed out that this Daphne is a large shrub variety and they have had a lot of success with it as the smaller Daphne is very touchy to grow.  I think it is Daphne birkwoodi and I would dearly love to have this growing in my garden and it can tolerate semi shade or full sun but it would not work well in my heavy clay soils and likes it acid where fruit trees are more alkaline.  There could be a place for it but not in the food forest unfortunately.  The other advantage is that it blooms spring and late autumn and it certainly was covered in blossoms for the bees in this garden at the end of May.

The weeping form Gleditsia tricanthos "Emerald Cascade"

I have since found out that Gleditsia is also known as Honey Locust.  I wanted to know what trees were legumes as I am planning to have every third tree in the orchard food forest as a legume to increase nitrogen levels. The size for this tree varies and I think that depends on whether grafting stock was used as this is a popular garden small tree because of its weeping form. Some sites say standard plants can grow 2 metres by 2.5 metres while others say3-4 metres width and 5-10 metres high.  They will tolerate semi shade. The best variety of Honey Locust to find is one that produces the long pods that can be fed to livestock.  They usually have long pods that can be fed to stock but they are also thorny...but this variety photographed didn't seem to have the thorns or pods. There is also a dark red/purple foliaged Gleditsia called "Ruby Lace".

Robinia pseudolacacia also known as Lacy Lady, Twisted Baby or Black Locust.

Robinia's nickname of Black Locust indicates that its close to Gleditsia (Honey Locust) with not so many thorns.  Peter and I really enjoyed the dainty and twisted or tortured form especially against the clear blue sky.  Apparently they have fragrant pea flowers that hang like Wisteria with a similar smell to orange blossom but the flowering is just short - about 10 days. They too are a legume, can grow in poor soil and is salt tolerant, but it likes water and protection from wind. It's renowned for its lovely pale yellowish brown wood; heavy, hard, strong, close-grained and very durable in contact with the ground. Downside is that Dave says he does have a lot of trouble with die back.  Still worth a try I think.  They are a very big tree in time but with regular wood harvesting the height could be kept in check.

Arbutus unedo known as the Strawberry Tree

This variegated leaved Strawberry Tree had plenty of fruit on it but few were ripe as yet.  When the fruit is falling off the tree the plant is already beginning to flower again with tiny cream bell shaped flowers a little like Lily of the Valley. If you eat the fruit before it is ripe it can make you feel nauseous and if the fruit has been ripe too long it can become intoxicating. There are reports of Tui's acting intoxicated after eating very ripe fruits from the Arbutus undo tree.  The fact that it has fruit or flowers nearly all year round is a plus for birds, insects and bees.  The tree is quite slow growing but you will be rewarded in time with a handsome tree..and you can make jelly from the fruits.

 Narcissus tazetta - the species name tazetta, an Italian word meaning little cup,
refers to the cup at the centre of the flower.

I was surprised to see Jonquils out so early - I imagine these garden's bulb plantings will be spectacular in spring.  And I was equally surprised to see so many roses still blooming in the rose garden filled with New Zealand bred roses.  This theme is continued elsewhere in the gardens with Camelias and Rhododendrons all being bred in New Zealand.  

I felt privileged to see Broadfield garden through the eyes of the gardener who helped to shape it. Dave's creativity is not limited to the garden, he has a number of sculptures throughout the gardens.

Dave Falls Oamaru stone sculpture "Give us a Hand"

This one was one of his first and he told us that the boss would always say "Dave give us a hand"..so he did.  The hand is placed so that it frames the final garden that is being developed into a wild flower meadow.

Brookfield is an incredible accomplishment and if you have the opportunity to go you will be encouraged at what can be achieved after only 20 years. The native New Zealand herbaceous border will give you lots of ideas of combinations of native plants.

We didn't leave empty handed as Dave gave us some seed heads of the naturalised native hibiscus, Hibiscus trionum.  Next year I will see if I can grow them.