For this episode we are in New Zealand. Luke Gardner wrote to me saying he had been listening to Our Plant Stories since day one and he had a plant story he wanted to share.

Luke's childhood memories are of a cottage garden with roses and peonies and tulips - 'exotics' and in the garden there were blackbirds and thrushes. He has now created his own cottage garden and plants thousands of tulip bulbs each year, opening his garden for a tulip festival.

Yet the plant he wanted to talk about was a New Zealand native - Harakeke, swamp flax. It is the soul of his garden, giving a sense of place, woven in amongst the cottage plants.

Luke admits he is still learning about native plants so his conversation with Edith Rolls a Māori weaver focus on the significance of this plant to the Māori and I think connections are forged again through plants.

If you enjoy this episode and want to hear about another native New Zealand plant then seek out the episode called Mona's Corokia.

Can I share my plant story with you?

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Edith: 00:00:25

So Hara and Keke.

Luke: 00:00:28

Hara.

Edith: 00:00:29

Yep. Hara Keke.

Sally: 00:00:30

Keke.

Luke: 00:00:31

Keke. Hara Hara Keke.

Sally: 00:00:35

Welcome to our plant stories. That is Edith teaching Luke and me the correct Māori pronunciation of the plant featured in this story.

Luke Gardner in New Zealand, who describes himself as a self taught gardener, has been listening to Our Plant Stories since day one. He emailed me because he has what he describes as a modern cottage garden. And in this context it was harakeke that he wanted to talk about.

His garden Longbush cottage is about 60 miles from Wellington on the southern end of the North Island.

Luke: 00:01:12

It's a beautiful evening here in Longbush Cottage.

I'm currently sitting on the back veranda underneath the grapevine which is heavily laden with fruit, looking out over my herb garden into the cottage garden behind which are great big clumps of harakeke which the tui are currently swooping in and out of, feasting on the nectar which they absolutely love. This is one of my favourite spots in the garden to sit of an evening or in the morning.

Sally: 00:01:38

As we know, plants always have more than just one name aside from the Latin one. So I thought we should hear some of the names given to this plant in New Zealand.

Luke: 00:01:48

The swamp flax in maori is harakeke and the Latin is Phornium tenax which is formian for, and I wrote this down basket and tenex is for tension, like because it's really strong. And then there's the common flax.

And that name came about because for when the European settlers came here, it was very similar to them from like linen flax because it had the same, not that the plants are anything like each other at all, but they had a very similar use.

So Europeans being, you know, colonisers being what they are, decided we'll call it flax. I think if you spoke to any New Zealander they'd say that flax is just such a background part of your life.

It's everywhere throughout the whole country. It's, you know, when all the native bush was cleared, you know, it was a plant that sort of held on.

I mean, obviously it was stripped out in lots of places, but it's such an incredibly tough plant. It came back pretty much straight away. So most New Zealanders wouldn't think, oh gosh, this is an amazing plant, it's really special because it's everywhere.

But the moment that it kind of became really special to me was when we brought the, the property I live now, Longbush Cottage was sitting on the back, here was no garden at all. It was just basically a paddock grazed up to the front door.

And sitting on the back veranda watching these tui sweep in and out of the flax, drinking the nectar.

And then they get into little fights because they're quite territorial birds, so they like to protect their own patch of flax if somebody will come and try and steal it. So it's quite amusing to watch describe

Sally: 00:03:27

Describe a tui to us who've never seen one.

Luke: 00:03:30

Yeah. So the other name people call them is a bishop bird. So they have like.

They're a black bird and they have a little white tuft under their neck, so they look like a priest collar.

I mean, sadly, a lot of New Zealand native birds are incredibly endangered through habitat loss and predation by introduced species. But tui are one of the amazing birds that have really hung on throughout a lot of the country. But they're still very special to see.

Sally: 00:03:58

So what attracted you to this property?

Luke: 00:04:01

We were living in Wellington and I'd created a nice garden hanging off the side of a hill. But I really dreamed of creating a cottage garden like what I grew up in.

So I grew up on a farm in North Canterbury and my mother had this beautiful country garden that got bigger and bigger every year and the pony paddock got smaller and smaller. So living in Wellington, I was trying to grow the plants that she had, like roses, like tulips, you know, all those cottage garden favorites.

And Wellington is not the climate to create that type of garden. And it's an incredibly windy city. Well, it's the windiest city in the world. So, yeah, I was struggling against nature, which is never fun.

So we discovered this cute little cottage in an empty paddock and I completely fell in love with it. And as soon as I saw it was like, okay, I've got this idea to create this garden here.

And about the only thing in the garden was these great big clumps of flax.

Sally: 00:04:51

Okay, so what did you do with the flax? Were you thinking, I'm going to clear it? Were you thinking, I'm going to live with it? What was your feeling when you saw it?

Luke: 00:05:00

The flax had been planted about 20 years earlier, so it was looking pretty scrappy.

So over time, with flax bushes, if you're not harvesting the leaves, it ends up with a big pile of dead leaves at the bottom, and then they sort of split, which is probably in the wider way for it to sort of reproduce. So to move a clump of flax is a bit of a palaver.

So we actually used a digger to dig them out and then I chopped them up into little pieces. So then I had this massive pile of flax which I've spread over the entire property. So it's everywhere now. It's all down a creek. It's around my pond.

Yeah.

But I guess the other thing that made me kind of fall in love with flax and realise that it's so special to this environment is that 200 years ago, the paddock that my garden's in would have been swamp. Yeah, a flax swamp. It would have been full of thousands of flax plants and really wet.

Like, it would have been a swamp surrounded by totra and native bush on the hills.

Sally: 00:05:54

As Luke alluded to, he didn't grow up in a garden with New Zealand native plants. So I wanted to understand more about that.

Luke: 00:06:03

Well, I think there's that sort of colonising mentality of, like, you know, we've taken this country from, you know, useless land covered in bush, and we've ripped away the native plants and, you know, we've made it into a little piece of England. So I guess it was kind of a hangover from that mentality.

I mean, there were acclimidation societies in New Zealand in the 19th century, introducing birds and plants. And because they didn't want to live in New Zealand, they wanted to live in England.

So they were trying to do everything they could to turn New Zealand into England. And our climate's pretty similar, so in some ways they were annoyingly successful.

Sally: 00:06:35

Interesting. So when it came to, like, you having native plants, you almost had to learn about them again?

Luke: 00:06:41

Totally. Totally. I had no experience with native plants. I mean, both my grandfathers were incredible veggie gardeners.

My grandmother had a beautiful flower garden, but none of that was native. It was all exotics. And same with my mother's garden.

Sally: 00:06:54

So would your mother's garden have had the birds in it? Would the tui have been in your mother's garden?

Luke: 00:06:59

No, no. Occasionally you'd get a bellbird and occasionally a fantail where I grew up.

And I guess I don't know if there was any thought that the native wildlife was important.

I mean, you know, I've got blackbirds, starlings, thrushes, sparrows in my garden, all these finches, chaffinches, all these things that were introduced in the 19th century, I guess maybe for predication, but also because they didn't want to hear native birds, they wanted to hear English birds, they wanted to be in England.

Sally: 00:07:28

It's quite interesting to me that you moved there wanting to create a cottage garden. And yet the plant that you wanted to talk about for our plant stories is flax that you just would not find in a cottage garden.

Luke: 00:07:41

No, I think it works in a cottage garden, but no. And I guess it's a story of my journey, going from somebody who grew up in an environment where you didn't grow natives.

I spent 10 years living in the UK and, you know, got to visit all these amazing gardens, which, you know, was really inspiring.

But then coming to this piece of land and having the opportunity to create my own garden, I guess the realisation that there's always a sense of place, isn't there? And for my garden to hold its sense of place, it needed to have that mixture of natives and exotics.

I mean, I've got lots of roses, peonies, I love lupins, you know, foxgloves, all those cottagy things. But I've used New Zealand natives for the hedging and the framework.

So I've got totra hedging through most of the garden, which clips just like English yew, which is a pretty fabulous thing. And corokia as well. I've used as hedging and grizzlyinias.

Sally: 00:08:35

Tell me a bit more about that sense of place. I'm interested in that thought.

Luke: 00:08:39

Yeah. I mean, so whilst the paddock that the gardens and, you know, for 150 years would have been part of a working sheep farm.

So it has that part of its history. So, you know, it's fenced, it was grazed, you know, it was it was stock feed, essentially.

But, you know, it is surrounded by beautiful hills and there is still quite a bit of native bush. What they couldn't burn, basically, you know, on the hills. And it was. And it's traditional Māori land as well.

nheritance, which was sold in: 1906

And that's how she was able to travel to Switzerland for finishing school. And so, yeah, so there's a real history to this environment, both in terms of Pkeh and Māori history. So.

mily all arrived here between: 1858

So, yeah, I guess. And it's about, you know, all of my childhood, all I wanted to do was escape New Zealand.

So it took having 10 years living in London to go, no, actually, I do want to go home.

Sally: 00:10:07

Tell me a little bit about the significance of what flax was used for in New Zealand, why it was such an important plant.

Luke: 00:10:15

So pre colonial times, it was. The Māori used it for pretty much everything. I mean, they made kitt or baskets. It was clothing, it was rope. It was. Yeah.

I mean, it's got so many different uses. But then once PKEH arrived and started the process of colonisation, they. The Mori introduced them to what an amazing product it was.

So by the: 1830

But that side of the interest actually is quite a sad story because the reason why the Mori were working so hard to produce those flax was to buy muskets, which then fuelled the musket wars between different tribes. So basically, survival for them was about getting more muskets. And, yeah, it led to a lot of bloodshed and sadness.

Then later on in the 19th century, they designed a machine that could thresh the flax a lot quicker. So it became a huge export industry for New Zealand, producing flax to go around the world to make ropes.

I mean, because it's one of the toughest natural materials. So in the 19th century, most ship ropes and that would have been made from New Zealand flax.

Sally: 00:11:31

Wow. Have you done anything yourself like that? Have you tried to to make, you know, use it in any way to make rope or whatever else?

Luke: 00:11:39

Oh, look, one of those things you do at school in New Zealand is that, you know, you'll do a Maori visit and you'll do a bit of flex weaving and. Which is fun. I mean, there are incredible artists in New Zealand now using flax to make beautiful kitai, which are baskets and art with it. Yeah.

And there's, you know, there's a national school of weaving in New Zealand, so it's definitely not a dying craft. There are a lot of people learning how to weave. So I'd say there's probably more people doing it now than there has been for years.

Sally: 00:12:11

And to continue our conversation, we wanted to talk to a Maori weaver. And. And Luke introduced me to Edith Rolls, who introduced herself.

Edith: 00:12:20

So Kotemaipi tokumona kai hoatoku awa kotakitimu toku waka he uria hau no Te Wairarapa e nohoana hau k Te t pirinui Whatonga, which I've only just learnt that where I have moved to now is part of 70 Mile Bush. So when we brought our property, we didn't actually realize we were buying our ngahere back, our forest back. So it's really cool.

Sally: 00:12:50

Edith, just for our sake of our listeners as well, can you translate for me what you said at the very beginning?

Edith: 00:12:56

Oh, that was just sort of showing where I come from, that Te Maipi. So the full name of our mountain range is Te Maipi e Warua Kupe. We show where we're from through our connection to prominent places in the Wairarapa.

Well, that's where I'm from, the Wairarapa. But when I do my ppiha, it shows my connection to the land, which shows you where my tepuna came from and settled.

So Te Maipe Waru is a mountain range along the coast. Kaihuata is the AWA is our AWA coming from inland out to the sea, where all of my grandparents, great grandparents, all grew up.

My mum was born out there, too. The waka is the ones that our tpuna came over to Aotearoa. They came on the takitemu. It was called takitemu.

It was one of the sacred, sacred ones that came and was escorted by two tarifa. What else did I say? I forget what I say. It just comes out. Oh, and I said, where? Where I now live in the forest of Fatunga.

Sally: 00:14:12

Beautiful. That's very, very beautiful. I love the way that, it's so interesting, the way that you place yourself within the nature around you.

That's very significant to the way that you describe yourself. And that's very different to how many of us think, really. I love that, that it's very much in the place you come from and your ancestors.

And what's important in that, in that place.

Edith: 00:14:36

I think it's important in Te ao Mori to know where you come from so you can know where you go, you know what your future holds. Because when you research your whakapapa, you figure out who you are and what is your gifts. Because what your tepuna, we believe we.

When we're born, we have, like, we have special gifts that are handed down through our whakapapa, through our bloodlines. Then there's the gifts that we learn as we grow, and there's the gifts that our. That the tpuna gift us, that make us all who we are.

So when I started weaving and learning about harakeke. It began with the journey of seeing a painted portrait of one of my nannies weaving on the porch.

And then from there I realised, well, if she can weave, I can weave. It's in my DNA.

So I started weaving from there and then started teaching anyone else that wanted to started the parakore journey, which is the zero waste journey of using woven baskets and woven flax and everything else instead of using plastic, making flax paper. Yeah, all sorts of bits and pieces, just to be more friendly to Papatuanaku, which is our word for Mother Earth.

Sally: 00:16:03

As you heard at the beginning of this episode, one of the first things we did was to ask Edith how to correctly pronounce harakeke.

Edith: 00:16:10

So hara and keke Hara. Yep. Hara. Keke.

Sally: 00:16:17

Keke.

Edith: 00:16:18

Yep.

Luke: 00:16:18

Keke.

Sally: 00:16:21

Kiki. Now, before we began that recording, Luke had warned me that they were experiencing 70 mile per hour winds, gusting winds.

So we began to talk about weaving.

Edith: 00:16:34

The one that is precious is the one that stands straight tall because it's got the most fibre and it is called muca buka. And that one we make our kurowai and kakahu out of. But your one was a lovely....

Sally: 00:16:50

And then Edith just disappeared. A week later, we tried again. It's lovely to see you both.

And Edith, it's particularly lovely to see you because you just completely dropped off the radar for a moment. One moment you were there and the next you're just gone. So what happened and what was the storm like for you?

Edith: 00:17:09

We lost 18 trees all up, six in the driveway, so we couldn't get to work. We had a pond, which was really cool and really pretty, but it's gone now. And, yeah, we're just doing lots and lots of firewood.

Sally: 00:17:26

Those winds, I mean, I was translating it - 120k for you is like 70 miles an hour for us, I think in miles still, that. That is. Yeah, that's fast. That' don't get in the way of that storm.

Edith: 00:17:37

They're still cleaning up from it.

Sally: 00:17:39

But the haikeke was fine, Luke said.

Luke: 00:17:42

Didn't even notice, did it, Edith?

Edith: 00:17:44

No, it didn't. Ours is booming at the back. I'm harvesting it all tomorrow. We're doing a weaving day in town in Mastodon.

Sally: 00:17:53

I love that the Harakekek is a bit like. Call that a storm.

Edith: 00:17:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. We probably just lapped it all up and thought, oh, lovely it brushed my hair.

Sally: 00:18:05

Tell me about weaving with this. I know nothing about it.

So tell me about weaving with harakeke, when you harvest it, how long it has to can you straight away start to weave?

Edith: 00:18:17

So our process is that we follow at tikanga, which is our customs. So when we enter the pa, we do a karakia to give thanks and acknowledge the pa before we start to cut the the parts that we need.

There's also a tikanga of leaving the baby which is called te rito, that's the centre shoot. And then we leave the awhi rito, which are the parents. The rito is connected to the mother leaf. That's how we associate it.

And then the protector is the father. So we leave those to nurture the rito so that it can survive.

And we take the tipuna, which are everyone else that's on the other side because we will use those. They're usually the longest and strongest. If you were to harvest the rito, it's very, very weak, it hasn't developed.

So your weaving will be the same.

But if you leave the three, the three, the centre shoot and the awhi rito that help it the parents, in about two weeks, sometimes sooner, you can go back and re harvest. It just rejuvenates that fast and then the structure's changed again and you'll have you take the outer two. And that's how we clean our pa. We give back.

We're very respectful so we protect what we need. We need it as much as it needs us. And the more we clean it, the bugs and any disease that it has.

Yeah, we're just helping it be stronger and clean it as we go - show thanks. And once we've harvested our leaves, then we start the next process which usually starts with another karakia.

We do all the prep work and then we can start weaving.

Sally: 00:20:16

How long does it take to weave a basket, for example, a small basket depending

Edith: 00:20:24

on what sort of baskets you want.

So like if you want arodo, which is a little basket that we used to use for kai, like individual baskets that can take you about depending on your skill set too. And your knowledge can take about half an hour to do.

Kte for Cairo would probably for very advanced weavers a day, depending on the pattern work too that you want in it. Because whkaido is about the pattern that you put in and each pattern that we weave into it tells a different story.

They all have different meanings and usually they tie back to your area. Because everything tells a story just like how the harakeke arrives and all the stories that we have around it have things for us to learn.

When we sing our songs too. They have messages in them, they have tikanga in them. How to interact with the harakeke, what to use, it depends because when our Te puna wrote the songs, they were lessons. They were like going to school.

Sally: 00:21:36

It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

Luke, when you hear all this about this plant that you are getting to know and love and, and you wanted to talk about for the podcast, how does that make you feel?

Luke: 00:21:47

Kind of realizing, yeah, it's absolutely fascinating. I mean, obviously, you know, for me, growing up in New Zealand, I wasn't exposed to this information in the same way.

So, you know, it's wonderful to look at something that, to me, as a garden plant, as an ornamental, to get some kind of understanding of actually how spiritual, what an important plant it is and all the different uses for it.

Sally: 00:22:10

And, Edith, is that knowledge that in the kind of wider New Zealand communities has been lost slightly to them, although it's obviously not been lost to you, because it's something, you know, is it something you're trying to explain and to get people to understand more?

Edith: 00:22:26

I don't know. Well, growing up, we thought everybody knew this. We thought everybody's nan taught them.

Yeah, we didn't actually realise until we met others that didn't know, which was why I think I thought it was important to start teaching, because it helps you connect, because we're all about connecting to everything in our environment, realising that the importance of everything, having a life force and how to live side by side rather than destroying what's around us.

And the only way to do that is to show them how we need it as much as we need everything else in our life, and that if we don't look after it, who's going to?

So we do the krero, like when we do the walking through the forest and that we talk about if you forgot your drink bottle, you know, and you're thirsty, how you can drink the water out of the putti putti. We show them about that part and how sweet it is and how hydrating it is, and it's always sitting in there.

So if you're ever needing a drink to rehydrate, just pick the flowers and drink out of them. There's lots of other Tikanga. We use it for birthing. We use it right through our life.

So when you find muka muka, we are teaching how our hapumama, how to make the pito, the umbilical cord ties, and how the green part of the flax has so much healing properties in it.

And even when they're dried, you can still use it to tie it off instead of the little plastic things that they use and that there is antibiotics in it and it helps baby and mum heal too. There's other things you can do with it.

Sally: 00:24:17

There is so much symbolism and spiritual quality to this plant that we may not understand or know about. It's just incredible. I love the way that it just becomes woven into your lives. Luke, what did you learn when Edith came to see your garden?

And also Edith, what did you think of Luke's garden? Who wants to go first?

Luke: 00:24:45

Yeah, yeah, look, it was super interesting. I got to meet Edith through a mutual friend, Larissa, who often comes to the garden and has been here and she creates incredible images. So it was so lovely walking around with Edith and her sort of explaining. But it wasn't just a flax.

She's got so much knowledge about so many different plants in my garden that it was just absolutely fascinating. So like I was saying, you know, I plant for beauty and to create a space.

But when Edith can look at my garden, she could see all the other practical possibilities you can do with these plants. It's amazing.

Edith: 00:25:20

And what did I learn?

I learned that practicality can be beautiful at the same time and that I've done a lot of research after that to figure out what partners better, what helps each other grow. I've just started on what will change the ecosystems in my forest. I like to call it my forest now and at Luke's I could see the endless possibilities, how everything could slot together and you be used. Because I'm all about. And having a purpose. Because with a purpose, you. You just flourish and just I don't know, I've got so much space that's working it all out.

I only really worried about my flax, which I brought with me, but now I want flowers and everything else so that it just brings the forest to life but not takes over where it starts. What do you call it? Like, taking over and I can't have all the ferns and mint everywhere and everything just running away from me and changing the whole whakapapa of the forest.

Luke: 00:26:35

Nice. I think you can have a garden in harmony with the forest as well, though.

Edith: 00:26:39

Yeah. Now I think it's going to look amazing once we figure out how to put in. Like, I've been researching.

So I do rungua mori, which is using our natives and I don't know my boss who does the healing with the different weeds and flowers and stuff just gave me all her books. I just went to work and she goes, I've got a present for you. So now I'm learning about all of those.

So I just think it was just all meant to be after visiting your garden. Now everybody's giving me all these plant books.

And I only put up those photos from that one day saying how excited I was. And now they're finding me all these books. I've got so many non native plant books now, I could probably have another shelf on my in my bookshelf just for those.

Luke: 00:27:34

Well, you're welcome to come and raid my garden anytime, Edith. Plants people are always generous people.

Edith: 00:27:41

So I have actually started organizing a weaving wananga in your glass house.

Luke: 00:27:47

Ah, really? That would be amazing. I would love that.

Sally: 00:27:51

I always love when we feel that connections have been made through a plant story, as I am sure they have been here. So finally a word from Luke about how to grow harakeke.

Luke: 00:28:03

Yeah, like I said, it's an incredibly tough plant. So I think it would be more about thinking how much space you've got for it. So depending on the size and again, the color palette is amazing.

So, you know, because of the way the strappy leaves are, so you can mix it in with other plants to give you a real structured effect. So they're pretty unfussy. You know, you can poke them in the ground.

They're really easy to propagate just by division or they're easy to grow from seed as well. I don't really feed my garden. I go a bit of blood and bone, but. And yeah, like, I'd never water the flax in summer.

Even, even in a dry summer, they're tough. So if you're doing a dry garden, planting the, the mountain flax is probably better for that than the swamp flax, but.

Sally: 00:28:51

And can you grow it in a pot?

Luke: 00:28:53

Absolutely. So that the pink one I was talking about that I mix with my tulips, I've got that growing in a pot more than happy.

And yep, the only negative thing I could say about flax is that the dead leaves over time, you know, so you, you need to be clearing away the dead leaves. And the best way to do that is actually with a craft knife.

So if you just, just pull and whack with a craft knife because they are quite tough and it can be quite hard with secateurs, but as long as you're constantly cleaning up around, you know, around the bottom, the dead leaves, which makes them look tidier and then over time, yeah, it will probably get too big for the pot, but you, you could just pull it apart.

But when, when you, when you're dividing a flax and planting it again, the best thing to do is cut it back really hard so then it won't rock around in the wind and then just poke it back wherever you want it to grow. And look at. It's incredible how quickly you'll go from a little stump a couple of centimeters tall into a great big plant.

Sally: 00:29:45

So they don't mind being cut back hard?

Luke: 00:29:48

No, no, no, no. they're indestructible.

Sally: 00:29:52

I love that fact that they are good in dry gardens as well because, you know, the way the climate is changing. What you're saying is they will cope in a way with what's perhaps happening with unpredictable weather.

So it might be hotter summers, very wet, suddenly very wet autumns or springs,

Luke: 00:30:08

And a lot of New Zealand plants probably will do that in an English environment. Basically we have a hot, dry summer and a wet winter in a normal year.

Not that we get normal years anymore, but that's kind of what New Zealand natives have adapted to. So a lot of them are really drought tolerant and can cope with sitting in water.

I mean, you know, you could have a piece of flax sitting in a bucket just about all winter and it would cope with having wet feet and then be fine all summer with no water. As you think about that, I did have somebody visit from America who said that they can't grow it because the nights are too hot.

So in New Zealand, like a temperate climate, but even in the height of summer it can be quite cool in the evenings here. So maybe that's one thing it can't cope with. But I would imagine England, there's not often where you're at 40 degrees at night.

I don't remember that from London.

Sally: 00:30:58

So tell me a little bit about how people can visit your garden and also about the New Zealand Garden Trust.

Luke: 00:31:05

Yeah, so my garden's open pretty much every day, 10 to 4.

My partner has set up a very easy booking site on our website and like I was saying before, I love sharing the garden with people and it needs a reason to justify it, so existence, you know. So it's wonderful to have people visiting and share it and we do things like pizza nights and, you know. Yeah. Which is great.

So, yeah, New Zealand, if, if anybody is coming to New Zealand and they want to see gardens, New Zealand Gardens Trust is the most amazing resource.

So just google NZ Gardens Trust and there are gardens from one end of the country to the other and they you get assessed every three years and you get a star rating which goes from three to six stars.

So three stars being a garden of interest, four stars which my garden is, as a garden of significance and five stars is a garden of national significance and six stars is a garden of international significance.

So if you're visiting a trust garden you're guaranteed to get a good garden experience and because of New Zealand's geography you know if you can start at one end of the country and see tropical gardens where you know when I visit gardens in Auckland I'm like well everything here is a house plant for me and then by the time you get down to the other end of the country it's like Scotland.

Sally: 00:32:26

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