New beds for the butterfly garden

More heavy winter work, but voilà, new garden beds!

July 2025

It's really not a good idea to garden on clay in winter. Apart from the mud, see whining in previous post, it's not good for the soil, which is being disturbed and compacted, or the lawn, which is being trampled. But these are jobs we will be doing only once and we can then help the soil and grass to recover. The blackbirds have been very happy though. They have been shadowing us throughout this part of the project. If you rest between digs, they'll chirp at you to keep going so you can undercover more worms.

The Matariki weekend in June was dry, giving us three days to work in the garden. We did well. As previously reported we'd already taken the grass off to widen the borders, but we needed to complete the edging and create two new beds, which I'll call the triangular bed and the big bed.

The new triangular bed, edged, and edging work underway on the big bed

We wanted to be able to walk around the flower beds, both for gardening access, but also to be able to get up close to the flowers and butterflies. Mindful of my elderly parents walking the paths, hubby put in a small retaining board to allow the bottom grass path to be more level. This has made the bottom bed more angular than I would have liked, but I'll soften it with planting.

Once the edging of those beds had been done, The grass needed to be skimmed off. Hubby rose to the challenge.

A peek at the hours of work to make the new beds

I then dug up and moved the camellias from the border to the top of the big bed to start a hedge. It'll help break up the wind before it hits the perennial plants. After a Google search, I found the camellias were Paradise Blush, a perfect variety for hedging, and I bought one more to finish the short hedge off. I'd thought they were double flowers with no/low nectar, but actually these have much more open flowers that are attractive and, importantly, insect friendly. No sooner had I replanted them, then a bumblebee came along and spent some time working through the flowers. Winter nectar is so important and that's why they can apparently also attract nectar-feeding birds. The silvereyes in the garden have already been feeding from a potted salvia so I'm glad we've got something else that might offer another food source.

Camellias re-planted as a hedge against swirling winds, top of the butterfly garden

I am not a fan of camellias, but I didn't want to throw plants away. Now the plants have been moved and their flowers are easier to appreciate, they've gone from a liability to an asset. It will take time for the hedge to grow in, and all the plants have grown in different directions, but I like this hotch-potch hedge that will help protect the more delicate plants in the butterfly garden. A butterfly cannot settle if it is being buffeted by the wind.

The new big bed

The image above is the big bed from the downhill side. You can see it has a couple of other plants already in it as well as the camellias. I planted mountain flax / wharariki for the birds and for early ground stabilisation. I also planted a David Austin rose, Windermere, which I had been recommended. It's sited close to where we have a seat planned, because it is known for its fragrance. Not in the photo but also planted now is a buddleia that had been languishing in a pot. I don't plan to plant the annuals and perennials until spring, but I thought the shrubs would be good to get in the ground. There have been some that have been waiting for the best part of a year that I brought with us as cuttings.

It took a long time to dig up all the trees and move them from the border. You can see the stragglers in the photo of the camellias. They were stubborn things, well rooted, and I had to ask hubby to help with the largest of them, as they were too heavy for me to lift. Fortunately, the lacebarks, which are beautiful and a great insect tree, look like they will survive the shock of the transplant. Again, I didn't want to throw plants away, but I'm less concerned if the others don't make it.

One of the moved lacebarks, on the right of the bed

Because we have created bare soil with the new areas, the next step is to add compost to help with the structure of the soil, should the worms oblige, and to mulch the beds to protect the topsoil from the heavy rain. In letting the weeds grow in the borders so the soil was held together, I've created more work for myself now I am readying them for planting. Mulching the widened borders will take more time because of it. That said, I've been cheeky and planted up the bottom corner already. That's where the last of the lomandra were holding out, as was the leftover hedging I mentioned moving in the last post, so weeds didn't get established there in such quantities.

A lemon tree we were gifted as a house warming present has gone into the deepest part of the corner, and next to it are buddleia, Mexican tree daisy and tree dahlia. In front of the lemon I've planted Mexican bush sage and catmint. There are also sweetpeas on a teepee, waiting for warmer weather to grow. I'll need to put groundcovers at the front. Whilst both ageratum and strawflowers are annuals, they have not yet died back in this sunniest corner of the garden, so it will be interesting to see what happens with them. I'm wondering if they are like heliotrope, often called an annual online because they are usually planted in climates where they do not survive the winter, but are actually a perennial here in Auckland. We'll see. I'm still waiting for the apple trees in pots that came with the house to finally lose their leaves so I can give them to a neighbour for their orchard. August is usually our most miserable winter month, so everything could and probably will change. One thing is certain though, it's going to stay muddy for another couple of months at least.