Latest news with #LouiseFrampton
Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Finding wonder in nature
With the increasing prices in the supermarket, many home gardeners are choosing to live more sustainably and grow their own fruit and vegetables. Louise Frampton talks to a Wingatui woman whose food forest is thriving. Sara Pepers-Hiltrop is an advocate for living sustainably and has set up her own edible paradise. Five years ago, she and her husband, with their two young children, bought a property in Mosgiel and moved in just as the Covid-19 lockdown started. She says it began with a dream to recreate an idyllic childhood, a place where children can climb trees, find birds' eggs, scavenge for berries and where they can marvel at "the wonders and abundance of the natural world" and so Wingatui Homestead was born. "I grew up on an organic orchard in South Canterbury and I wanted to recreate this lifestyle, especially for my children and generations to come," Mrs Pepers-Hiltrop says. Initially there were just a few big trees on the property, but slowly she is transforming 0.4ha of the property into an edible food forest, based on permaculture principles. The lawn and pasture that used to surround the house has been replaced with layers of a "forest", mimicking a natural ecosystem, from the tallest of shelter trees down to the smallest of root crops underground. With a predominantly clay-based soil, she uses a no-dig method of building up layers of organic matter with grass clippings and plenty of leaves that people drop off to her. "It's all about not disturbing the soil microbes too much," she says. As we meander around the garden, it is clear Mrs Pepers-Hiltrop's dream is coming to fruition. Most plants are still dormant, but the buds are swelling, a branch of one pear tree is already in blossom, a monarch butterfly is gracefully fluttering past and the birds are happily chattering, alerting us the garden is starting to awaken. In a few months' time, the garden will be in full production supplying the family with cornucopia of veges, fruit, berries and nuts to eat, give away or preserve. The selection of fruit and nut trees on the property includes many heritage apples, pears, nashi, quince, apricots, peaches, plums, almonds and hazelnuts, all of which Mrs Pepers-Hiltrop has grown herself from grafting scion wood on to rootstocks. She clearly has natural green fingers and enjoys propagating many plants, which is evident from the collection in her nursery area. Grafting is a skill she is especially relishing. She has even cut back an old cherry plum tree and re-grafted it with plums and apricots. "It's a bit of an experiment, but I like doing experiments." Nestled among the fruit trees is an under-storey of perennials and flowers to attract pollinators, block out weeds, repel pests and add year-round interest. And growing beneath the trees are potatoes, yams and mashua — a white type of yam which grows as a vine similar to nasturtium — which are ready to emerge once the frosts have subsided. There is plenty of variety around the garden, such as tree lucerne for the birds, buddleia for the butterflies, olives in the dry areas and water cress in the damp areas. "I try to keep it diverse," Mrs Pepers-Hiltrop says. Which is also why she does not get a lot of pests. "I think a lot is down to the biodiversity. I've also got frogs, skinks, earwigs, millipedes and predator wasps." She also has six Cayuga ducks, which are being encouraged to wander around the garden and gobble up any slugs. But the chickens are wisely fenced off from the food forest, as their natural scratching behaviour can cause havoc in the garden. At this time of year, Mrs Pepers-Hiltrop is finishing off pruning. She says stonefruit such as apricots, peaches, cherries and nectarines should ideally have been pruned in summer after they finished fruiting. Stonefruit is more susceptible to fungal diseases, such as silver leaf, if pruned in winter. But it is not too late to prune pipfruit such as apples, pears and quince. She says the main problem people have with pruning is they do not realise a fruit tree can't be pruned like a shrub. "You just can't get the hedge clippers out." "You have to structurally go through the whole tree and have a look at it and decide what to take out." "You want all your fruit on the top and outside of the tree so it can get sun on it and ripen." She says overcrowded branches inside the tree limit the airflow which can lead to powdery mildew and woolly aphids and diseases. But it is not just the pruning that is important. Thinning out the fruit in summer is essential too to ensure the fruit has adequate room to grow to a decent size. "You don't want 20kg of marbles. You want 10kg of good-sized apples." She encourages people to build their own food forest by starting with just one tree, and then building the layers around it. "There's so much craziness, pain and suffering in the world that can sometimes leave one feeling quite powerless. This is something I am within my power to do, to try to change things for the better. "I hope it inspires people to try to grow their own food and try to live a bit more symbiotically with nature." She says it is not as hard as people think. "You don't actually need a lot of space for a few fruit trees or berries." To help other people get started she has set up a small business where she offers pruning services and has a private backyard nursery offering a click and collect service from her Wingatui Homestead website for fruit trees, shrubs, berries, herbs and perennials. "I've worked in the corporate world and it just wasn't for me," she says. "I want to do something that's fulfilling and that I am passionate about. It is small at the moment, but I hope it will grow."
Otago Daily Times
17-07-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Flowering on track
The Dunedin Railway Station is one of the most photographed buildings in New Zealand, but it's not just the building that features in visitors' photos, it is also the knot garden and the seasonal flower display which catches the attention of visitors and locals as well. Louise Frampton asks Delta gardener Nicola Kerr how she keeps the Anzac Square looking its best. How many times a year do you change the plantings? The annual beds are changed twice a year — firstly, in March for the winter display; and then October for the summer display. How far ahead do you start planning? I do my design work a year out from each changeover so the growers have enough time to source and gather the seeds to grow for us. If I have a brainwave moment, or see a bedding display in another town that I like the idea of — in regards to design or particular plants — then sometimes designs extend further than a year in advance, but orders need to be nine to 12 months in advance for the growers. Explain the key design elements you consider when creating a public display. I do really like height. Given the most people who will see these gardens are those driving past, I like to choose plants that sit above the Buxus hedge line. Solid colours stand out in patterns. Using various shapes that are big stand out. I am a fan of the pastel palette, but next summer and winter will bring out some bright palette and "traditional" bedding species. As for designing the garden bed, a can of spray paint and string lines are used to mark out shapes and utilise the room within each bed. This gives the planting team obvious boundaries to work to, ensuring the shape comes out as planned. What are some of the "staple" plants each season? For the last few winters I have been experimenting with different types of ornamental kale. They make a great foliage plant, especially the flowering peacock red against the silver foliage of the cineraria Silverdust, which I have in one of the bedding plots at the moment. The kale, like any mass monoculture planting, has come with its challenges in the past years, but so far this year we have had a few frosts and that has brought the colour out in the leaves. A must-have in a winter bedding design is tulips. I love tulips — the solid pattern of the same coloured tulip stands out. Summers are my favourite time of year for bedding as there is a lot more species of plants to choose from. Once you have a plan in place, what is the next step? I send my order through about a year in advance to our supplier that grows a wide range of plants and has the facilities to deal with large plant orders. We receive the plants in 24-cell packs. How many plants do you need to order for Anzac Square? There is 655.5sqm of annual garden bed here at the Dunedin Railway Station. The largest bed is 465sqm, which is a massive area! The total amount of plants each changeover vary slightly on what species I have chosen, but around 21,000 plants are ordered and 15,000 of those are in the biggest bed alone. I have a team of gardeners from Delta who come and help me with the changeovers. Pulling [removing old plants] takes a couple of days with a team of about six. Some of the plants are repurposed in other gardens and others are given to the public. The beds then sit empty for a week to give them a much-needed rest. Preparing the gardens involves adding compost in spring and using a rotary hoe, which prepares the soil in the beds nicely. A granular fertiliser is then added and raked in. Then the team comes in to help plant-out. I have had the entire railway station planted in three days before, but planting time depends on the designs and if the plants are "hardened" off enough. What has been your favourite display? My favourite winter display so far would have to be a couple of years ago when it was a colder winter and the pink and white kale stood out. This year I have trialled using cyclamen Mini Figurine mix and that has done well flowering-wise. I have a couple of favourite summer displays, but my favourite combination of plants would be cornflower mixed and viscaria mixed. They complement each other so well. I'm a huge fan of a mixed cottage garden displays, such as cosmos, delphinium, dahlia, godetia and osteospermum. Has there been any less successful displays? Last summer was quite wet and I got some bad stem rot in cosmos. Every season I'm challenged with something due to our climate, but for the majority of displays they are a big success — gauged by all the positive feedback from visitors to the gardens. How do you keep on top of the weeds? If I'm going to be honest, weeding's not for everyone — but it is for me. I like listening to music as it motivates me to do hours of weeding at a time. I do spend a lot of my time hand-weeding. Depending on the weather and type of weed, I can push a hoe, but in winter it's more hand-weeding than anything. In summer, when the temperatures are warmer, the weeds can wilt and die off much easier being push-hoed. Planting taller plants helps suppress the weeds better and that's one of the reasons I'm a fan of taller plants.
Otago Daily Times
05-06-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Embracing a smaller garden
Louise Frampton talks to a St Clair woman who finds a smaller section does not have to give up a love of gardening. Maori Hill Garden Club president Kris Wills has found her "happy place" — a flat section, with a small garden and a 10-minute walk to the beach. She found the property about two and a-half years ago after moving from a terraced section in Belleknowes. At first inspection, the property was not perfect, she says, but she could easily visualise the potential. Her main objective was to create an inside-out garden. Key to this was painting out the brown panelling in the house, opening up a wall between the kitchen and dining room and enlarging a window to near ground level. "This virtually doubled the size of the window," she says. This not only let more light in, but it also helped create an inside-out feel by enhancing the connection between the dining room and the garden. Painting the inside walls a fresh white shade and incorporating indoor plants and vases of flowers also reinforced this connection. When she first moved in to the property, a huge pohutakawa tree was shading the side of the house. She enlisted the services of landscaper Jonathan Wood to help remove the tree and create an easy-care gravel area suitable for displaying her collection of pots. "Jonathan was great. He brought in a wee digger to help dig out the roots of the tree and then he wheelbarrowed in all the gravel," Ms Wills says, clearly impressed with the makeover. Her partner Graham also helped enhance the area by building a fence at the back with inbuilt planter boxes. This helped create a private area and formed an attractive backdrop for the Prunus lusitanica (Portuguese laurel) trees, which were placed in ther planter boxes. When visiting in early May, the pots contained blue daisy Felicia amelloides , Moroccan daisy Pyrethropsis hosmariensis , a weeping maple turning its autumn colours, hydrangeas, polyanthus, petunias, geraniums and, surprisingly, parsley. "Parsley is such a good filler in pots", she says of the herb that offers lush green growth almost year round. "The great thing about pots is you can easily add seasonal colour with annuals and perennials, and you can move the pots around if you need to." Her love for pots also extends to the front door, where a collection of pink cyclamens, blue polyanthus, lavender and pansies offer a bright welcome for visitors. A former nurse and phlebotomist, Ms Wills treats her potted plants like her patients and certainly looks after them. "I really believe in feeding them well." She gives them a weekly dose of a liquid seaweed fertiliser and keeps them well watered. Her front garden is still a work in progress as she strives towards a more maintenance-free area. She has had the larger trees thinned out and would ideally like to remove them all and grow a camellia hedge, but for now privacy from the street is more important. Variegated grasses, hostas and heuchera border the edge of the lawn and spots of colour such as peonies and dahlias add interest in the spring and early autumn. Her landscaper was instrumental in selecting plants for the front garden and provided many options for Ms Wills to choose from. "Together myself and Jonathan came up with a planting plan which is proving to be gorgeous and very welcoming when you come in the gate." She has added a magnolia and flowering cherry and, in the centre of the lawn, she has planted wedding cake tree Cornus controversa 'variegata' where one day its distinctive tiered layers will make a magnificent statement tree. Closer to the house, the curled leaves and weeping branches of Robinia pseudoacacia 'Lace Lady' add another focal point. Being deciduous, its twisted branches will add structural interest to the garden during the winter months. She says her garden isn't too contrived or fancy. She plants things that make her happy. "I'm not a fussy gardener." Ms Wills only recently joined the Maori Hill Garden Club. "I met a former president at an exercise class, who invited me to come along to a meeting. "And the next thing I know ... I am the president!" She said there was no need to live in Maori Hill to be a member of the club. "I joined the garden club to be with like-minded people and to enjoy their company. I wouldn't say I'm an expert by any means, but I very much enjoy trying things out and happily move things around if they don't work." She says everyone in the club either loves gardening or enjoys being with those who do. "We all enjoy visiting beautiful spaces people have created." The club has a "friendly welcoming vibe" and is always looking to welcome new members. Members range in age from late 60s to mid 90s. "So if you're recently retired and have a few more hours to enjoy at your leisure, come along." The club meets on the first Monday of the month, at the Maori Hill Community Centre at 10am.
