Building the flower field at Maytrees Garden

The Journey

In 2018 we set about building a flower field in the steep muddy eastern facing field next to our house.  By no means the ideal location for a flower field, I was determined to create a space for growing on the land we had adjacent to my family's established gardens - which my mum had always called Maytrees, due to the hawthorns amongst the native scrub regeneration.  At the time I was working in a beautiful florist shop, and as florists we had an insatiable hunger for beautiful, novel and interesting locally grown blooms, so I thought to find my green fingers.

2018 - The first stages of building the field

My husband Joe and I set about rotary hoeing and building wooden framed terraced beds, across the hillside. We opted for 1.2m wide beds and tantalised pine framing (I wasn't planning growing edibles so it seemed the cheapest and easiest option). The soil was heavy clay and wet and had been grazing land for decades, but in we went like bulls in a china shop.  We added compost (so much compost!) and leaf mulch and arborist woodchip and clay breaker and organic fertiliser.  There was a lot of back breaking digging by hand, especially on the topside of the beds, where the soil was heavier due to the cut and fill of the terracing.  

Many hands make light work. The flower field really has been a family affair - I am so grateful for all the help and support for Maytrees.

We opted for arborist woodchip pathways underlaid with cardboard.  I had seen this done at a flower farm I had visited in the UK, where they used wood chip on the paths, then recycled it as bed mulch and soil amendment. Generally, arborist chip has leaf and twigs as well as woody plant growth and decomposes much more quickly, with a more balanced nutrient profile then regular wood chip. We also set up support systems using waratahs and plastic support netting with wooden cross bars. 

Finally, we laid an inbuilt T-tape irrigation system, leading off both a rainwater tank and the mains for back up.  With a bit of brain gymnastics over connections, elbow joints, goof pugs and taps we had a system where we could water the beds independently or simultaneously.

2018/19 - The field in it's first Summer. Abundant with flowers and steep learning curves.

Lessons learned 

I would never recommend starting a project like this in a wet spring - or at the least, time it to good weather! Clay becomes so unworkable in the wet and it damages the soil structure. Though clay is not an ideal growing medium, it is fertile, and it is quite valuable for water retention in raised beds, with the proper amendment of organic matter. I've learned the hard way that when working clay soil, it helps to avoid compaction and crust formation in rain, by mulching as soon as possible. The beds still seem like a bottomless pit for organic matter (peastraw, composted chip mulch, leaf mulch and green crops) but the soil structure and biology is better every year.

Weeds weeds everywhere, and not a flower to pick!  Introducing lots of organic matter from different origins meant a high weed seed volume.   Perennial weeds especially are difficult in our field; dock, buttercup, convolvulus, clover and woundwort.  Turn your back and they are off again from the tiniest pieces.  They say "one year seeding (opps, I was busy growing a tiny human rather then flowers!) 7 years weeding". However, I am hoping (perhaps naively) that overtime keeping them under control may reduce the seed and vegetative volume in the field.

Summer 2021/22 (covid and baby No.2 meant 2019/20 was dahlias and perennials only)

Using pathway chip to amend the adjacent beds would work well on flat, non clay, perennial weed free sites, but for us it was just too much work and we have since resigned ourselves to weed matted pathways and composting chip piles. Due to the terracing in our field, soil overflowed onto the chip and made a slick clay cap that our delightful perennial weeds clover, buttercup and woundwort just raced through.  I have found that composting larger piles of arborist chip gets the temp up and composting going much more quickly, unfortunately you need the space to achieve this.

I detest plastic support netting. It tangles and snaps and sags and tests my patience more than a toddler post birthday party sugar load! The south westerly just whipped across what I thought was quite a sheltered field and decimated crops before I could net them, or ripped the netting, or the stems snapped and bent over the net. This year I am trialing various more robust, permanent and sustainable options for replacement support - If anyone has any easy NZ options for support I would love to hear your experiences.

Spring 2022 at Maytrees

The investment in a good irrigation system with rain water tank, has paid off year after year, and I would totally recommend a t-tape drip irrigation system to minimise water wastage and to get it where it is needed. Just ensure the proper pressure regulators (Joe's tip) and watch out for the tape when enthusiastically wielding tools (Rosie's tip - don't worry you can get nifty little joiners......I order in bulk)!

Our flower field is small, about 500 square meters (or 1/8th of an acre) and this includes shrub plantings, so one of the biggest challenges has been maximizing productivity and having consistent flower production over the growing season. I've tried lots of ways to achieve this; optimising plant spacings, succession of different crops on one site, small succession plantings of the same crops to a create a rolling supply, prioritising productive and cut and come again crops, prioritising soil health and the list goes on. No matter what, I always run up against the limitations of our space and I imagine it will always be a juggle to find the best ways to maximise productivity on our small site.

Summer 2022/23

Finally my most hard won lesson - I needed to realise the limitations of our site and embrace what thrives in our microclimate.  Unfortunately it has taken (often heartbreaking) experimentation to figure this out!  Our Eastern facing site has too low sun and light levels and too high moisture for over wintering many things without cover - with root rot and downy and powdery mildew rampant.  We also don't get the summer heat for super successful heat loving annuals like zinnias and celosia, but hardy annuals like scabiosa, lavatera, sweet william, snaps, godetia and statice and strawflowers and hardy perennials love it here.  So, I'm learning to go with what grows here, to create an abundantly flowering field here at Maytrees Garden.

Summer 2022/23 (In case you were wondering, 2023/24 growing season was essential perennials only due to baby No. 3!)