Gardening Layout

When I layout my garden, it will be designed like a strip tease, with parts revealed, at certain points, and then concealed, perhaps behind viels, or sunk in shadow. So the viewer will be led on by the mystery of the next bend.
Although it is hard to imagine a garden not only as a 3dimensional space, but also as a temporal, chronological space, like a piece of music. With juxtapositions, and contrast both imediately, and over time.
Bethunes Gulley of Dunedin, is a myterious place, it is huge, and looks as though it may have been part of an ancient, giant long dead civilisation.

here is a map drawn from my minds eye. Of course from here it looks more like an intestine.


when you come out of the tunnel you can see right up the gully.
Once you've crossed the first green you are funnelled towards the foot bridge. Here the bush enclosers the vista, but through it you can make out the terraces beyond.
You cross the bridge and burst out into the second green, and make your way to the top of the steps under the forboding watch of the pines, this is the entry to the Mount Cargill walk.

I'm currently developing my garden into a feast of native plants, shrubs and trees. At the top, where it is protected from all sides and the sun beats against the clay I'll have alpine plants, and succulents.
At the moment, I'm collecting as many miniature plants as I can, starting with succulents, because they are the only things which have sofar taken route from my cuttings. Whipcord hebes,


hebe salicornioides



helichrysum coralloides

, I expected to be easy because of the softness of their wood, and their proliferation. However, although these have all started to go black, the ones in sand have taken the longest. Although I was avoiding dampness around their heels for fear of rot, next time I shall keep a basin of water under them, out of contact with the sand, but close enough that evaporation will keep them moist and cool on hot days. I experimented also with sitting some in clear resealable plastic bags, with there tops open. The humidity hasn't done them any favours.
. The seeds I collected I sowed in April. With no results so far. Seeds included libertia oxioides (New Zeland Iris), some of which I soaked in boiling water until it cooled, and planted at a range of depths between the 2 mm and a surface sprinkling. This variation I treated all the seeds to. I also planted the fruits, mistakenly I realise, of a three kings Island Cabbage tree (CordyLine Kaspar, or Cordyline obtecta).
Cabbage trees fruits according to Plant Grow
Plant Grow
, you should Soak, Friction, Sieve Dry.
TheTotara berries I picked have a remained gelatinous after 2 months in the hot water cubbord in a brown paper bag, but they are recalcitrant, and they need to retain their flesh to avoid dessication.
They also need to be stimulated by cool weather, and are best sown in the spring, so it will be the fridge for them before long. Along with Pittosporum, Hebe and CordyLine Australis species.
more about germination
The succulents and other miniatures I will have I plan to set in a matrix of red brick hexagons, filled with suitable well draining soil, and covered with quarry dust for weed control, and colour, struck in concrete, and following the curvature of the hill. So they will act as cells, or pots, for the different specimens. Further down the hill will have tussocks, grassess and hebes (hebe topiary) and iris. I would also like cyprus pillars, but the have proven hard to make cuttings of, and they grow slowly. Poplars would serve just as nicely I think, because I have seen some as street trees in Dunedin and even in miniature they were pillar shaped. This is where the garden will take a cue from the spaciousness and order of Versailles, although not quite as spacious



versailles

I have a Festuca Coxxi, growing poorly in the lee of a lacebark, which I can separate hopefully, and, along with some carex plant out on the slope.
This is a very steep, terraced section, and below the house, away from the current social spread as it were, I plan to plant out in an arboratum, that can be wandered through, I kind of Alice in wonderland of scales and strange forms.
I just saw a large planting of Carmichaelia Odorata (a leafy broom) with very little between its long thin trunks, but a light canopy just overhead. In between, were planted Chattam Island forget me nots. These large formations that can be wandered through or around (I'll also have veriagated pittosporum,




and Phormiums(flax)), will be placed on the landscape in such a way that each position has its own vista, but also with concealed areas to discover. I will also have a small planting of Manuka, which I think would do better than most in the clayey soil. The paths will be defined more by the spaces between the plantings and the shape of the land than any change in material. Use of plastic sheeting and bark should keep the areas between plantings clear to a degree.

Further down towards the bottom of the garden (my property is in the shape of a wedge, with its point in the river at the bottom of a gulley) it gets damper and darker. Here I already have PoroPoro, and intend to add fuschia, a Monstera, is actually doing well higher up in the garden. But because of its shape, the jagged saw tooth leaves, it's waxy tropicle surface of it's leaves and its name which can turn into Staremonsta if your not careful, I want to plant it with the jungly plants. Another thing, with dark purple/red berries, dangling like a string of bells, and I have not found the name for, but is probably a weed, looks very mysterious and also belongs down there.
My neighbour has a Nikau, whose berries all disapared in a matter of weeks without a trace, but I intend to catch them next year, and plant them somewhere down there too.