Karin’s garden is a place and an idea. We, Ashley and Karin, live in Motueka. We actually grow most of the plants in our suburban garden. However, Karin’s garden includes all the most beautiful plants that thrive in coastal Tasman’s climate and soil.
The plants are included because they are; beautiful, of long lasting interest, easy to grow; and enjoy the warm and relatively dry climate, and the acid soils.
One thing you will notice is a preponderance of pink. I have learnt over the years that if you can enjoy pink flowers, successful gardening suddenly gets a whole lot easier. So, we do have red (eg Epilobium) and orange (eg Aloe) and yellow (eg Kowhai) but they are separated either in flowering time or place.
The plants in Karin’s Garden are not necessarily low maintenance, though many are. The usual garden activities do go on; weeding, dead heading, pruning, cutting down, a little fertiliser and some spraying (Conqueror Oil for Thrip and Aphid). However, these plants do not require any special skill to grow. The cloud pruned Chilean Myrtles that we bought with the house are not in Karin’s Garden, as keeping them looking good does require a lot of time and some skill with the pruning shears.
Our garden in Motueka does actually have the inevitable fruit and vegetable patch. However, Karin’s Garden is for the simple pleasure of admiring beautiful plants, rather than eating them.
Finally, to introduce ourselves – here we are:-
Ashley is really the gardener of the two of us. Karin is the judge of whether a plant is worthy of it’s place in the garden.