Libby's Garden.

‘What I love about gardening is the miracles,’

Headland Farm Park - Whangarei Heads New Zealand

Libby says as we drink coffee, overlooking her colourful garden with the Whangarei Harbour as a dramatic backdrop. ‘Yesterday I found two teeny weeny puka in a flower bed. They’d got there all by themselves. I’ll pop them in pots and, when they are big enough, I’ll find a place for them.’

Her delight in these tiny intruders is tangible. I’m interested to see this side of Libby. I only know her from our book club as a voracious, insightful reader with a droll sense of humour. 

Libby continues, ‘I have this gorgeous clematis that hangs down so you can’t see into the flowers. Yet when you do look, they are so delicate: maroon with little white spots. Nature is just amazing – it doesn’t need any help. Like the little daffodils by the gate. I forget all about them and suddenly they are there each year saying, “Hello, we’re back”. It’s thrilling.’

The way Libby bought this house was rather miraculous. Some 35 years ago, she and husband, Rob, decided to sell their farm. Libby did a reccie of the area, saw this house sitting in a paddock, and thought it beautiful. However, she was convinced it would be too expensive. Then, out of the blue, a man contacted them: would they swap their farm for a house and cash? It was this very house! 

The Japanese Weeping Pagoda

Now she’s planted the idea of miracles in my mind, I see miracles everywhere. Her Japanese weeping pagodas, winter-bare of leaves, are a sculptural marvel with extraordinary, twisted limbs. Epiphyte tree bromeliads dangle from trees, entirely self-supporting. There’s a strange, tangled, nestlike plant lying nonchalantly beside a path, studded with tiny purple flowers – beautiful and also fully self-sustaining. 

The garden is rich with bird life. As is her house. When she was making us coffee, generous glass doors to the garden stood open and a couple of sparrows swooped in. They did a circuit and swooped out again. 

‘They seem to know their way around,” I commented.

“Well, I can’t afford a robot vacuum cleaner,’ Libby replied, deadpan. 

She entices birds with seeds; her particular love is the Californian quail with their ‘strutting and top knots’. But her garden is filled too with trees, flowers and insects – a bird banquet. She won’t prune her hibiscus until the kererū have finished feasting on the early spring shoots. Libby admires the rengarenga lilies who survive despite the never-ending attack from snails. No doubt, these snails become tasty snacks themselves. Did birds sow the seeds of her puka; an unconscious act of thanks? 

Libby’s garden is serene; she co-exists with the plants and birds. Everything seems to have a light touch. While she tries to keep on top of weeds, she accepts them too. “Where there’s good, there’s bad.”  She rejoices in her unexpected gifts, replanting them to ‘fill the holes’. Even as she’s shaping the garden, she gives it space to shape itself. 

I drive away, hand light on the wheel, resolving to be more alert to tiny miracles everywhere. 

Words by Zana Bell Author

Illustration by Zoe Sizemore Artist