Ruud Kleinpaste: Winter Colours in the garden

After a few weeks of really misty, cold, and awful weather, I needed to get out of bed and find some inspiration for the garden. A “pick-me-up” if you like. 

But where to go? 

Yep – Hagley Park is always a good place, but so are the garden Centres! 

The difference is quite obvious: The Botanical Gardens will show you stuff that was planted many decades ago. It’s the picture of the future – a glimpse into your garden the children will enjoy after you’ve moved on.  

How about the “now” – or maybe the next 10 years or so? 

Impatient? Perhaps… 

So I went to Oderings to have a look for some quick colour, tincture, complexion, some colōris, or, as the Spanish Language so elegantly describes: el color. 

Start with the Letter A: Acer Known here as Maple. 

Acer senkaki is obviously a Japanese maple. It glows red in Winter (and it’s quite pretty as a summer tree too). 

You don’t have to wait for it – you can buy it right now to cheer you up. 

The next Acer is A. griseum (the paper bark maple) a Chinese species that is actually quite rare in nature, but reasonably common in gardens owned by observant gardeners. Don’t be fooled by the species name “griseum” (meaning grey) – it refers to the underside of the leaves. 

The peeling cinnamon-coloured bark is what gives me hope: hope for a speedy springtime and hope that some young gardeners will see the beauty of back-lit leaves from a low-angled sun. 

You want some weird Pink to cheer you up? 

Here’s an Erica, simply because I kind-of grew up with plants like that in the Netherlands. Heather, Heaths (“de Hei”), and such plants belong to the Ericacea with almost 1000 described species. They’re tough and flower colours are often spectacular; great tucker for insects like pollinators. 

But the coolest thing is that a good number of these Ericaceae have a habit of flowering in the middle of winter, and that can be brilliant!  

And then there are Daphne and Hellebores and the fabulous scent of Osmanthus. 

But perhaps it’s a good opportunity to highlight some Native winter jewels, like Libertia peregrinans. 

Or the range of Corokias (Geenty’s Ghost and Frosted Chocolat). These last two make fab hedges!! 

We also have weirdly bright Cabbage Trees (Cordyline) and strangely dark Flaxes, small and tall. 

No doubt all found as unexpected genetic morphs or cross-bred entities; mind you, I must say that the dark “background” flaxes really fit well in many gardens and the nectar feeding birds are still keen to visit the flowers in late spring. 

One native shrub that always bowls me over (when visiting the Catlins) is the relatively slow growing Pseudowintera colorata, also known as Horopito. This shrub is totally unexpectedly beautiful as just about every specimen has a different colour-ratio, live and in nature. 

Now that’s a shrub worth investing in, especially as you can eat the leaves, not just in Māori dishes, but also in Indonesian delicacies. 

It tastes just the way it looks: On fire! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Rude Climb Past.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Good morning, Hey, good morning. Where have you been all
this time?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Sitting at home? One in the olympacks and on. I'm
sure normally I confuse everybody when I come in and
fill in for Jet, because they all walk in and
they see me and they go, is it Sunday? No, no, no, no, no, no,
it's not Sunday.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
It's still Saturday. Promise.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I am so delighted with your topic today because, as
I was just saying before the break, I've been sitting
We've just had gray, miserable days, and it's just about
very wintery. And this week we've got, you know, we're
very our gardens very confused. We've got a lot of
blossom out. And the toy bed oh, just big gorgeous
toy and the birds song and it just puts a
smile on your face, just lists you, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
You've got it, And that's exactly what it's about. I've
actually noticed how when we hit this all this great
stuff going on, there was very little things to lift
you up. So so it was actually interesting because I
came I drove home from the city. I think I
can't remember, and I thought, you know, what am I
going to do? And I thought, and there was odor
rings to one of the places where I go buy plants,

(01:19):
and so I just screamed into the into the side there,
packed my car and just had a look what was
actually interesting at the moment, and I was amazed, amazed,
which is so many good things. Well, I found maples, maples,
and there's so I've got all the stuff. Letby's put
them all on the on the wet side and so
you can never look at it. There was, for instance,

(01:40):
a maple with bright red stems in the wintertime, absolutely wonderful,
as sen Khaki called thing. And then when I came
home later I saw another maple called grizsium, which is
the paperback maple that has this amazing if you like,
back that flutters off in the sunlight and it's back

(02:01):
lit in this coppery orange color, just beautiful. It's called
arsa grisium, which is crazily crazy word in Latin because
grisium means gray, and that's probably to do with the
fact that the leaves are gray. But that's not the story.
Is that barkpeeling now, Yes, it's peeling now, and it
and it makes the If you see it, you'll see it.
You'll see the photo on the website. If you see

(02:22):
it sticking out in random sort of manners, if you
like it looks absolutely alive. That's one of my favorite trees,
by the way, grisium. And I'm not talking about natives.
These are all all Japanese or North American trees. And
but I just thought that is sometimes where your heart springs.
You know, a step and says, this is it great stuff?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
What about if you're a little bit of color?

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Erica Erica, that is Erica, which is I know that
from the Netherlands as heather or heath or in Natalan's
we call it de hay. And this is absolutely beautiful
because it's flowers right now in mid to late winter,
and it's the place of course where all the pollinators
that are still around can get their This is important.

(03:07):
I look at this too, as you can imagine. So
that's that's a cool one to have an in your garden.
Go never look at Erica. Then I found, of course
Daphne's and hellebores and osmantors, and those things are always
there there. Everybody's got them, everybody knows them, but don't
underrate them. They are beautiful. It's just a good thing
to look for right now. And then I went to

(03:29):
some of the native things that I you know, I
always have to go back to native libersia, beregrints or gokia,
which is the genies ghost and frosted chocolate. These are
absolutely colorful, almost hedgy plants, especially the karrokia. And that
means that your hedges can be bright reddish orange at

(03:51):
the moment. I like that idea. I like that.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
And you also made the suggestion of hopito not a
little peppery, a little bit of a peppery taste.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Not only that you can use it, you know, of
course as a culinary thing, but horopito is also one
of the unexpected beautiful things that goes into red yellows,
greens and all. And the best place to see in
and I'm not going to tell Auckland is that in
the best place to see mister Katlan's.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Thank you, Thank you Rhodes. You'll be back shortly your
Saturday morning.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news Talks 'd B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio