I’ve always admired Margery Fish’s water tank. It was an oak barrel that sat against her house and collected rainwater from a drainpipe. I’ve only ever seen photos of it. It was honey coloured like the stones her house was built from. It looked like the sort of beautiful and practical fixture that every self-respecting cottage garden ought to have. So when Paul, who made my shed, told me I had to get a water tank, I instantly thought of Margery Fish.

I bought a wine barrel that had been converted into a water tank on the internet. It arrived a few weeks ago. Paul’s just about finished the guttering on the shed and last week he built a platform for the rain barrel to sit on (which I painted yesterday). It won’t be long before the rain barrel is operational, Paul’s going to get the drainpipes next week. But it nearly didn't happen, the rain barrel that is, at least that’s how it felt last Monday. That was a very dark day.

The platform for the water tank that Paul built.

Barry from Barry’s Barrels told me I needed to buy a Marley Twist Diverter. He said I could buy it at Bunnings. The Marley Twist Diverter is a clever contraption that gets attached to the shed’s downpipe. It lets water into the water tank but also let water out once it gets full.

The nearest Bunnings is on the other side of town. It’s a 35 minute drive when the traffic is good. Up until Monday I’d never had a bad Bunnings experience, but then I’d only ever bought plants or dustbins or buckets. Bunnings, in case you care to know or have forgotten, is a chain of mega-hardware stores throughout New Zealand. Their brand is ‘lower prices are just the beginning.’

Last Monday I drove out to Bunnings. I spent 15 minutes searching the aisles for a Marley Twist Diverter. I looked in the gardening section and then tried to find a section that had water tanks, there wasn’t one. I wasn’t entirely sure what a Marley Twist Diverter looked like or where it would be shelved. In retrospect I should’ve done some homework on the internet.

At this point I decided I needed the help of an expert. It took 10 minutes to find a Bunnings store-person. There weren’t many store-people around and the ones I saw were either up ladders or rushing away from me. Eventually, I found a lovely chap called Neil.

Neil worked in paints and didn’t know much about plumbing, which is where he reckoned the Marley Twist Diverter would be, nonetheless he said he’d help me find it. I followed him up and down a number of aisles looking at various plastic pipes and their attachments. There were gutter guards and drainpipe filters but nothing to control the flow of rainwater. Neil interrupted a guy who was checking the serial numbers on toilet bowls and asked for his help. It turned out that Bunnings don’t put Marley Twist Diverters on their shelves, it was a specialty product and I needed to order it in specially from the ‘Special Orders’ desk.

Neil wrote down the order number of the Marley Twist Diverter and escorted me to the Special Orders desk. The ‘Special Order’s desk was actually 4 seperate desks (in a ‘u’ shape), each with its own computer. I’d passed the area earlier, thinking it was where you ordered ‘big value’ items like showers and vanity units and entire kitchens. Back then it had been manned by a man and a woman, but not any more. The ‘Special Orders’ area was empty.

I waited for 10 minutes along with 3 other people. Neil passed us, saw our predicament and said he’d sort it out. And sure enough a minute later his voice boomed out over the loud speaker asking for someone to go to the ‘Special Orders’ desk urgently.

We waited 10 more minutes. Still no one came. One of the guys waiting was a plumber he was ordering a water-saving bidet for a Thai woman who owned a guesthouse. The plumber went off to the paint counter to see if someone there could help him.

I tried my luck at the information counter. I asked if I could order my Marley Twist Converter there. No I was told. All orders had to go through the the ‘Special Orders Desk’. I explained that there wasn’t anyone at the ‘Special Orders’ desk. The lady at ‘Information’ rang 2 different phone lines, trying to find someone to help me, but to no avail. Then she put out a tentative request over the loud speaker.

I walked back to the ‘Special Orders’ desk. The plumber was back, having found a lady from the paint section who was willing to help. She was seated behind one of the computers, trying to get into the system. She wasn’t having any luck. She told us that she’d been working at Bunnings for 11 years. Only the people at the ‘Special Orders’ desk knew how to use the ‘Special Orders’ desk computers, she told us. And on this particular day only one person was working in ‘Special Orders’, a lady called Karen. Karen was on her lunch break.

I knew when I was beaten. I left Bunnings and drove home.

As luck would have it I had to visit the same area as the Bunnings warehouse later in the day. I was feeling lucky. Surely Karen had finished eating her lunch by now. I went straight to the ‘Special Orders’ desk, unfortunately Karen wasn’t there. I waited for 5 minutes for her to show up. She never came. I went over to the paint counter, which was nearby. I waited behind a woman who was having a lengthy discussion with the paint guy about a paint product. The guy was young, enthusiastic and seemed to know his stuff. Maybe he knew how to use the computer at the ‘Special Orders’ desk.

Then it was my turn. I asked the paint guy if he could order a Marley Twist Diverter. He said, ‘No, all orders have to go through the Special Orders’ desk.’ I explained my situation. He said, ‘Karen’s on her afternoon tea break.’ I explained how it was my second trip to Bunnings today, that I’d done a hell of a lot of waiting. ‘Surely,’ I asked. ‘There must be someone who works here, besides Karen, who can put through an order for a Marley Twist Diverter.’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘Only Karen can do it.’ I felt like hitting my head repeatedly against the paint counter until my brain oozed out. It’s moments like these I wished I was the sort of person that made big fat ugly scenes.

As a rough guess, the Bunnings warehouse probably employ 50 to 70 people. They have a wood yard, a tool section and a gardening section - just to name a few of the many specialty areas. Hell, they even have a cafe and a person whose job it is to guard the entrance and check people’s till receipts. You’d think more then one of these store people could be taught how to process an order for a Marley Twist Converter, you would wouldn’t you…how hard can it be. If you can buy a pair of shoes off Trade Me or make a bill payment on internet banking or pre-order a Playstation game then, surely, you can fill in an online form for a small water diverting pipe. ’Lower prices are just the beginning’ should be read as a warning.

The very next day I drove 15 minutes up the road to Mitre 10. It’s a very small hardware store compared to Bunnings. They had 3 Marley Twist Diverters sitting on their shelf. Now they have 2.

Once upon a time, before my garden was a garden it was a field. Before it was a field it was a forest. i’m forever pulling up native tree seedlings. My garden, if left unattended for 15 years, would turn back into a forest. This gives me hope. Sure the forest would be a mixture of exotics and natives, but so what, it’d be a forest.

Increasingly I’m thinking about plants that like shady places. I only have a few areas in my garden where plants get all day sun, all year round. The rest of the garden gets varying amounts of sun, with a few areas that don’t get any. My section is long, narrow and north-west facing. I have a number of large to medium trees. My house is also long and narrow and it sits in the middle of the long and narrow section. Because Wellington is a hilly city there’s a huge variation in sun exposure from winter to summer. As I cram more plants into each garden bed I’m creating more shade. I’m really interested in shade loving plants.

Two weeks ago I visited a woodland garden with a friend of mine. It’s called Pepped Warbeck and it was open to the public along with another garden down the road called Arcadia (more on that one in another blog). Pepped Warbeck, which sits in a valley, started life as a series of farm paddocks with a stream running through the middle. It’s full of plants that like the shade.

I’ll take you for a walk through it.

Here’s a tree I didn’t know existed until I saw it in this garden - a Michelia, which belongs to the Magnolia family.

I really want this plant, flowering dogwood, Cornus florida.

Here’s a beautiful combination of forget-me-nots and Primulas.

There were dozens of Euphorbia melliferas in this garden. I have one at home. I was surprised that some of them were growing in shady places and doing so well.

This was a sweetly scented Viburnum. I must track down what kind it is.

This was a wonderful stumpery. It had a Poor Knights Lily, Xeronema callistemon, growing beside a Trillium.

I like renga rengas, Arthopodium cirratum (with the sword-shaped leaves above), but so often they look tatty and unhappy (they look good here and in other sections of the garden). I don’t know what the secret is to growing them lushly.

Here are some stunning variegated Ligularias. I would love some.

Here’s an Epimedium. I don’t know much about these plants except that they're great woodland plants and I don’t have any in my garden. I sure would like to get some.

There are two shady areas in my front garden. The first area is very new, it’s a year old. The second area has lots of older trees and shrubs; it’s the smaller plants in front of them that are new.

Above is a view of the front garden. I’m standing in the second woodland area, looking towards the first woodland area.

I love primulas and these are the only ones that have appeared. I’ve planted a few different kinds. These ones are ‘Hose in Hose’ primulas. I’ve planted them under my crabapple tree.

I tried to grow some cowslips from seed but didn’t read the instructions properly (they needed to be stratified) - so they didn’t sprout. I could easily become a primula collector. There’s such a wide range of colours and styles.

Geraniums are a wonderful woodland plant and I have lots of different ones. This is Geranium phaeum ‘Samobor’. The leaves are just as pretty as the flowers.

Violets and foxgloves (which aren’t in flower yet) are two more woodland flowers with beautiful foliage.

Here’s some blue Pulmonaria or lungwort.

Here are some photos of the older woodland area. It sits in the shade of a kowhai, a karo and a camellia tree. Last year I planted a kaka beak, which has grown a lot (you can see its leaves in the bottom left of the photo below).

Here’s an oak leaved hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia.

I have 3 different types of Ligularia and begonias in this garden. This Ligularia is the Leopard Plant, Ligularia japonicum ‘Aureo-maculata’.

The big leaved plant above is Ligularia reniformis, the Tractor Seat Plant. Behind and to the right of it is Ligularia ‘Britt-Marie Crawford’.

The feathery leafed plant is an Astilbe, a white one, which has never flowered. The plant with the creamy-greenish flowers is a Hellebore that my friend Sophie gave me a few years ago.

Last year while I was on a garden tour in the Wairarapa I bought 3 plume poppies from one of the gardens. They died down over winter and now they’re starting to pop up. I’m a big fan.

Below is one of the newest members of this woodland. It’s a Podophyllum emodi (May Apple). I have 2 of them.

And here’s one of my favourite shrubs and it’s just about to flower. It’s a Brachyglottis (at least that’s my best guess, I lost the tag years ago), though I don’t know which species it is. It’s not the common one, growing wild all around Wellington (which is also beautiful). This one has different leaves and much brighter flowers.

And finally, here are a couple of stumps in my fernery (which is also a woodland garden). The first one was given to me by Sophie and the second one was given to me by my son Seb (who found it lying around in a kids playground).

I spent a lot of time moaning about how hard it was to find a Marley Twist Diverter. That was nothing, absolutely nothing, in terms of hardship, compared to gardening alongside this little guy. I thought teaching him to walk on a lead was challenging, teaching him to stay off the front garden is proving to be impossible. As is stopping him from digging up seed trays and potted up seedlings. He’s awfully helpful when it comes to digging holes for new plants.