Division in the ranks

The best, most awesome, funnest part about Autumn is that all of a sudden, we have an enormous pile of plants.

Japanese irises, rengarenga and geraniums- we had 2 full wool sacks just for the Japanese irises

Most irises and lilies are done flowering for the year, which means we have to dig them up, chop them into parts and replant about a third.

We are then left with bags, and bags, and bags of plants looking for new homes. People often refer to garden designers as having a signature style- sometimes I think my signature style is ‘rengarenga.’ I want to joke that the ‘rengarenga’ style is actually my friend Lesley’s- her entire garden was converted by weeding and dividing rengarenga, planting them and then slowly removing them as a diversity of new plants were added. Most of those rengarenga ended up at client’s homes, where there were gaps but no plans, or slopes and a need to secure the bank.

One of Lesley’s slopes- phormium cookianum, hebe speciosa, and toetoe have replace the rengarenga (which you can still see at the bottom of the slope/top of this photo

I do wish that it was just as easy to move nice, rounded shrubs around- they often curl up and die when dug up, and being asked to remove a large number of nice shrubs is much less common.

But, one thing that our staff really enjoy is leaving one property with a huge sack of plants, and making someone else’s day by planting them all at the next spot. And as long as this is seen as a positive by the clients, it’s such a great bit of whakamana (empowerment) for staff.

One thing I am enjoying a lot this year, is that we ended up with a huge sack of marjoram, a culinary herb; and also Solomon’s Seal, pictured below.

Cheers to Better Homes and Gardens for this photo. Mine all look like the below at the moment-

I want to defend my potting skills- this is the third tray of Solomon’s Seal, it was 6pm on the Thursday before the long weekend, *and* it was knocked over three times by the cat, because our nursery is out of room, so it is in a precarious position! Roots are sticking up, some tubers are above the soil, and none of the plant will give a toss about such bad potting skills.

Sometimes things can’t be rehomed easily, and they tend to live underfoot in my garden, or potted up and sold when the roots have developed. Space is at a premium as a result, and sometimes I wonder what the *actual* cost of these plants would be- free plants, mostly free soil from our composting, reused plant pots and at least 30 seconds of attention every 2-3 weeks until sold… I don’t think I’d change a thing to be honest- late nights are for potting up as the sun sets and the chickens look on, hoping I will throw them some weeds..

Then there are the valuable/pain in the bum plants, like Libertia Grandiflora, which are beautiful, expensive plants, that tend to completely die back and look awful for months before all of the new growth comes up. Replanting those anywhere is hard, because noone wants to deal with a really manky-looking plant for 9 months, and when we have to divide them we end up with at least 30 pots worth of iris to tuck in somewhere in the madness while they regenerate.

For instance, this bad boy weighs at least 10kg and has ended up tucked behind our fence because I am out of pots, dirt, and patience. It will probably be offered up on Gardener’s Swap Group Wellington, a facebook group where people gift their excess plants.

Dividing plants is easy, fun, and you will make a lot of gardening friends when trying to offload the bounty (aka green waste, depending on your social energy). We will have a more thorough write up in the paid section of the blog in a few weeks, if you are interested. :)