Our native forests enliven Meg Liptrot's gardening efforts at home.
Tramping is one of the things our country is known for, yet many New Zealanders haven't ventured further than their car will take them. It is more likely you'll bump into German or French visitors on some of our Great Walks. It's my opinion that you can't really know a place like ours without getting out of your comfort zone and into the wild lands. It's there you can gain the ultimate inspiration for your own garden.
In making this grand statement, I admit to not being naturally inclined to pick myself up by the scruff and go on a tramp. As a child I would moan at the prospect but, once out, my cousins and I always had great fun. I realise now that it was on one of those day walks in the Waitakere Ranges, listening to my uncle wax lyrical about the Taraire fruiting, or letting us taste flax flower nectar, that my appreciation of native plants and wild Aotearoa began.
Over the years, I was coaxed into greater expeditions, including a trek in the far north from Spirits Bay through Cape Maria van Diemen, with its beautiful pink clay. This is where I learned to appreciate the little details along the way, and photographing them ( annoying my fellow trampers): lizard tracks in the sand dunes and windshaped manuka or bleached driftwood.
Along the South Island's Heaphy Track, I wondered at the mysterious misty beech forest and silent leaf-litter paths, which opened up to the grandeur of Gouland Downs. Unusual granite outcrops, similar to Easter Island statues, punctuate these vast tussock lands.