English garden inspiration

Maximum flowers for minimum talent

March 2025

I'll admit it. I don't have a design for the butterfly flower garden. Me, the person who wrote a project plan for the garden. Well, I guess they are different skill sets. Designing and planning are opposite sides of the brain, surely. Which means I won't really be able to tick off #8 on the plan:

8. Need to plan a successive flower garden for interest and extended nectar offerings

My garden is currently quite formal - too formal for my tastes really - but it demands more thought than I've given garden design in the past. However, where I am lacking natural talent, and anyone who has visited my homes will attest, is design. I love colour and texture and art. I don't really ponder if it all goes together. When it's done well by someone else, I truly appreciate it, but I can't do it myself. This doesn't bode well for the flower garden.

I watch videos on YouTube telling me that garden planting design is simple - I just need to think of the shape of the plants, the height of the plants, when they'll come out, when they'll die back, how transparent they are, how they move in the wind, the light levels they need, their place on the colour wheel, their preferred soil type and moisture level, etc, etc. My brain simply can't cope with that many factors. Added to that, with the garden sloping so much, height is skewed anyway. Please forgive me whilst I go into a corner and whimper.

Salvias and sedums, Auckland Domain Wintergardens

I can only really concentrate on one of those elements and hopefully the rest will miraculously fall into place. I have decided to plan around when plants will be flowering so there is a year-round food source for the butterflies. There should be more butterflies in the summer, so it's okay to have more plants flowering then, as long as there is something for the sunny days year round.

I have been told I am very English (I'm hoping funny and tea-loving rather than xenophobic and condescending) so it's probably not surprising that my taste in gardens is heavily influenced by English garden design styles. I'm all about flowers, flowers and more flowers. Fortunately there are places in Auckland where garden beds are based on these styles and I can see what plants have been used.

The border at the Wintergardens, utilising flowers at different heights

Previously mentioned because I did the butterfly count there, is the border at Auckland Domain Wintergardens. That width is too much for my garden. It's a scale designed to impress, whereas I need to be able to get in and weed. Nevertheless, the way that the colour reflects through vignettes of plants and the multiple heights of flowers are lessons to take away.

The perennial garden at Auckland Botanic Gardens ablaze with colour

Another garden to take notes from is the perennial garden at Auckland Botanic Gardens. This is on a more gentle slope than my garden, but it helps to see how they have allowed for it. They also have beds you can walk all around, and that is my plan too. The Gardens label a lot of the flowers and I'm thankful they do, so I learn the varieties I am not familiar with.

Labelled flowers - thank you, Auckland Botanic Gardens

They also have a bed close to the rose garden which must be for pollinators, if not butterflies specifically. It contains tropical milkweed, guara, Mexican marigold, roses, dahlias, daisies, zinnias, hibiscus, Mexican bush sage, liatris, alstroemeria and angel's fishing rod, Dierama pulcherrimum. There are a host of other flowers I don't recognise. It's mad and colourful and beautiful.

Pollinator garden at Auckland Botanic Gardens

I also undertook the MBNZT "Create Butterfly Habitat" garden design online course. It also went through lists of plants that could be used, but it was most helpful around elements I hadn't considered, such as how to design a shelter belt and how different butterflies would want flowers at different levels. The visit to Franklin Farm butterfly house, which I will post about separately, has also given me many ideas for flowers for butterflies.

Monarch butterflies on Mexican bush sage at Franklin Farm butterfly house

So, I now have a plant wishlist, based on nectar, and I'll plant them together as best I can. Hopefully all this knowledge will have somehow seeped in subconsciously and the garden will turn out just fine. And if not, the wonderful thing about a garden is that it changes over time. It's a living thing, not static, so if I don't get it right, I'll tweak it. Why did I get so stressed?!