Last week I got stuck behind a bus. I was in a long queue of traffic waiting for the green light. I was driving my son somewhere, either to school or football. It’s all I ever do – drive, unless I’m in a traffic jam in which case I wait.

Anyway, we were stuck behind a bus and there was an advertisment on the back of it. It took up the entire side. There was a photograph of a smug looking guy sitting on an enormous white couch. According to the advert the guy was called Neil or Nigel or Mark or something. He reckoned he was Wellington’s top realestate agent. There was something sad about the picture but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I don’t know why because the guy looked like a bit of a jerk.

‘What does the white couch mean?’ asked my son. He’s 16 and taking Media Studies at school. I guess they sit around asking these sorts of questions.

I was daydreaming about plants, most likely, or I could’ve been making mental lists of things I needed to buy or jobs that needed doing. Either way I wasn’t thinking about Neil and his white couch, so I said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘The white couch means he’s loaded,’ said my son. ‘Only rich people buy white couches.’ He’d recently used all his birthday and Christmas money on a pair of designer white sneakers. They had a hand painted heart on each shoe and took weeks and weeks to arrive from The States.

My son stores his sneakers in the box they arrived in. His room’s a tip but the white shoebox is always carefully placed next to his bed. On the rare occasion that he wears the sneakers he deliberately walks flatfooted. He’s 6 foot tall. In order to place his entire foot on the ground at the same time he has to raise his leg up high. It’s like he’s having a ‘knees-up’ in slow motion. He does this so his shoes don’t crease. It would be fair to say that he couldn’t be in any kind of a hurry, what with this slow funny walking and constantly scanning the footpath for anything that could soil his shoes, be that small puddles of water, wet leaves or wayward snails.

‘That clowns loaded,’ said my son, pointing to the realestate agent on the bus. Though he didn’t actually say clown. He called him something else, a swearword that started with the same letter, which I ignored.

‘Why does the white couch mean the guy’s rich?’ I said. ‘Maybe his favourite colour is white, maybe white goes with his wallpaper.’

‘Think about it,’ said my son.

‘I am,’ I said.

‘Who do you know who owns a white couch?’

‘No one,’ I said.

‘Exactly. A white couch indicates wealth it signifies richness. White shows the dirt. He probably buys a new couch every time the old one gets dirty. He’s a rich clown.’

‘He probably doesn’t have kids or pets,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t have a white couch for long with kids and pets.’ And then it occurred to me what was sad about the guy. The white couch looked like a couch from one of those furniture hire companies. It was a ‘show’ couch. The couch wasn’t his and he was pretending it was. He really believed people would trust him.

And so, that’s how my son got me thinking about the colour white and how it’s used to denote luxury, wealth, good taste and cleanliness.

The beginning of the white garden 4 years ago, looking through the fence.

I made a sort of ‘white garden’ but not for any of those reasons. At least I hope I didn’t. My ‘white garden’ is a bit like my son’s shoes – utterly impractical.

Basically I ran out of space. I’d turned every free piece of lawn into a garden, but still I craved more. I wasn’t done with garden making. That’s when I came up with the idea of turning the lawn under the washing line into a garden. I’d always had plants growing around the perimeter. Plants came and plants went. 4 years ago I experimented with umbellifers (see photo above) and seedlings from these annuals still pop up. Last year I turned this area into a proper garden.

I reckon that the easiest (and most environmentally friendly) way to turn a lawn into a garden is to turn it into a raised bed. This way you don’t have to get rid of the grass, you pile everything on top of it. I covered the lawn in thick layers of cardboard and newspaper then I dumped a compost/soil mix on top of that. Sure some weeds snuck through but not as many as you’d think. After a year or so the layer of turf has turned into soil.

This ‘white garden’ or ‘washing line garden’ has some challenges. Firstly, half of it is overshadowed by an oak tree in summer – though it gets some morning and evening sun. Secondly, a north and west-facing fence casts some shadow on the plants directly behind it. Thirdly, it’s a ‘washing line garden’ so plants have to contend with overhanging sheets and towels that spin around quickly in strong winds. Fourthly, until two weeks ago the dogs, who live in the back garden, had free access to the white garden (initially they didn’t). And, while I tried to protect the plants with tee-pees of bamboo, and this worked some of the time, the soil around the plants, was either dug up or became rock-hard thanks to eight busy paws.

I don’t know why I ended up with a white-ish garden. Really it’s supposed to be a sort of meadow come country roadside garden. An overgrown mix of grasses, roses and umbellifers. I wasn’t trying to do a Sissinghurst sort of thing, that was never my intention. I probably went for white flowers so that the garden was dominated by shape and foliage.

The white garden is a work in progress, recuperating after a thrashing from the dogs. It’s also where I house my dustbin compost bin, a 70s invention. As you know, I hate rats. And regardless of what people say, my personal experience is that traditional composting methods attract rats - no matter how careful you are. I use 4 different rat-free composting methods and this dustbin method is one of them – and a good one!

So here are a few photos of how the garden looks at the moment. It’s an end of summer, start of autumn garden. I didn’t plant any umbelliferous plants this year because of the dogs, they would’ve trampled them to death. So far the dogs haven’t tried to push the fence over (which they could easily do). The fence is something I found at Bunnings Warehouse. It’s a cheapish solution and not too ugly. As you can see the lawn is very threadbare. I’m sure you can guess why that is.

I have 5 Pemberton roses in this garden. A rambler called ‘Seaspray’ 1932 (which I’ll end up moving), a Hybrid Musk called ‘Autumn Delight’ 1933, a Hybrid Musk called ‘Pax’ 1918 and 2 Hybrid Musks called ‘Prosperity’ 1919. These are far from the only roses in this garden. You could say I’m a bit obsessed with roses. I have photos of all of them except for a Hybrid Tea called ‘White Wings’, 1947. I don’t know why I didn't take its picture, it wasn’t for its lack of roses, which were plentiful, beautiful and sweetly scented.

I usually avoid roses that are unscented but I made the exception for the rose above, a Rugosa called ‘White Grootendorst’. I planted 2 in this garden. Its flowers are like carnations and the leaves are pretty too. I planted one of them in a shady spot and its leaves are getting ravaged by something. They’re covered in small holes. It’s supposed to be able to handle light shade, but I’m not so sure. My other rugosa is much better at growing in the shade.

I have 3 different grasses in this garden. All of them are dormant over winter. I went with these sort of grasses because they’re more delicate looking then the evergreen grasses. They’re easy to divide and I do this whenever I feel like it. I especially love the grass above, Chasmanthium latifolium. It has wonderful seed heads in autumn.

Because of the dogs and the windy summer, many of the plants are growing horizontally. I have 4 dwarf agapanthus, which got damaged by the dogs. They were all supposed to be white, but one of them ended up with pale purple flowers. One of the roses ended up being the wrong colour too. It ended up being a pale pink. I like these touches of colour.

There are at least 3 different dahlias in this garden. Platinum Blonde and Eveline are my favourites and I’ll order more of them next year, now that I’ve fenced the garden.

Clematis paniculata, Puawhananga, NZ Clematis and white honesty, Lunaria annua - spring 2019

White honesty, Lunaria annua, self seeds all over this garden. It looks its best in spring (when it flowers) and in autumn (when it produces beautiful seeds).

Polyantha Rose, ‘Anna Maria de Montravel’, 1879.

Daisies and white yarrow, Achillea, remind me of roadside meadows. I’m talking about the wild grassy spaces beside country roads, bordering fields. When we drove from Wellington to Lake Rotoiti, the week before Christmas, I saw hundreds of wild roses growing on the roadside, all of them in flower. They looked wonderful with the wild flowers and grasses around them. The roses were all garden escapees and had grown into large bushes.

‘Blanc Double de Coubert’, 1892, is one of my favourite white rugosas. I’ve read that they can grow leggy, but that’s easily fixed with a pair of secateurs. The flowers are pretty and have a divine scent. It is happy in sunny or semi-shaded positions.

Hybrid Musk, ‘Queen of the Musks’, 1913.

I want this garden to be interesting in autumn so I’ve introduced 2 different types of aster: a pink and white one called Aster lateriflorous var. ‘Horizontali’ and a white one called Aster n.b. ‘Snowball’. The bees loves them.

The seeds of white honesty, Lunaria annua.

I’ve had to put in some shade tolerant plants, including roses. This white anemone is doing well in the shadiest spot.

I’ve become a born again vegetable grower.

I think growing veggies in raised beds and containers is easier for a beginner. Because the garden is right beside the front door I pass through it every day, many times. It’s easy to gather food or check if the plants need watering. It’s a sunny place to linger.

Back in November I planted a NZ potato variety called ‘Huakaroro’. I’ve never grown it before. You can’t buy this variety in the shops so I had no idea what it would look like or taste like. I harvested half the potatoes last weekend. Mine were a lot smaller then the ones on the internet, probably because I crammed too many seed potatoes in one bed. Next year I’ll give them more room.

Potatoes are one of my favourite vegetables. I roasted the Huakaroros in the oven and they were the tastiest potatoes I’ve ever eaten. They have an incredible buttery texture and lots of flavour. Given how much I neglected them, I didn’t deserve such potato perfection.

You’ll notice a mushroom coloured compost bin in the photo below. I bought myself a tumble compost bin for the veggie garden. I guess you could call it an impulse buy. I was killing time in Bunnings. I bought it with the money I’d set aside for a pair of shoes. The compost bin was made in Israel, it came with an excellent instruction sheet and was easy to assemble. I’ll let you know how it performs.

See you in a fortnight.