Louise Frampton asks Delta gardener Nicola Kerr how she keeps the Anzac Square looking its best.
How many times a year do you change the plantings?
The annual beds are changed twice a year - firstly, in March for the winter display; and then October for the summer display.
How far ahead do you start planning?
I do my design work a year out from each changeover so the growers have enough time to source and gather the seeds to grow for us. If I have a brainwave moment, or see a bedding display in another town that I like the idea of - in regards to design or particular plants - then sometimes designs extend further than a year in advance, but orders need to be nine to 12 months in advance for the growers.
Explain the key design elements you consider when creating a public display.
I do really like height. Given the most people who will see these gardens are those driving past, I like to choose plants that sit above the Buxus hedge line. Solid colours stand out in patterns. Using various shapes that are big stand out. I am a fan of the pastel palette, but next summer and winter will bring out some bright palette and "traditional" bedding species.
As for designing the garden bed, a can of spray paint and string lines are used to mark out shapes and utilise the room within each bed. This gives the planting team obvious boundaries to work to, ensuring the shape comes out as planned.
The 2024 summer display of delphiniums, cornflowers and viscaria was one of Nicola Kerr’s favourites. PHOTO: GERARD O’BRIEN
What are some of the "staple" plants each season?
For the last few winters I have been experimenting with different types of ornamental kale. They make a great foliage plant, especially the flowering peacock red against the silver foliage of the cineraria Silverdust, which I have in one of the bedding plots at the moment.
The kale, like any mass monoculture planting, has come with its challenges in the past years, but so far this year we have had a few frosts and that has brought the colour out in the leaves. A must-have in a winter bedding design is tulips. I love tulips - the solid pattern of the same coloured tulip stands out.
Summers are my favourite time of year for bedding as there is a lot more species of plants to choose from.
Bright yellow coreopsis grew beside tall delphiniums in January this year. PHOTO: LOUISE FRAMPTON
Once you have a plan in place, what is the next step?
I send my order through about a year in advance to our supplier that grows a wide range of plants and has the facilities to deal with large plant orders. We receive the plants in 24-cell packs.
How many plants do you need to order for Anzac Square?
There is 655.5sqm of annual garden bed here at the Dunedin Railway Station. The largest bed is 465sqm, which is a massive area! The total amount of plants each changeover vary slightly on what species I have chosen, but around 21,000 plants are ordered and 15,000 of those are in the biggest bed alone. I have a team of gardeners from Delta who come and help me with the changeovers.
Pulling [removing old plants] takes a couple of days with a team of about six. Some of the plants are repurposed in other gardens and others are given to the public. The beds then sit empty for a week to give them a much-needed rest. Preparing the gardens involves adding compost in spring and using a rotary hoe, which prepares the soil in the beds nicely.
A granular fertiliser is then added and raked in. Then the team comes in to help plant-out. I have had the entire railway station planted in three days before, but planting time depends on the designs and if the plants are "hardened" off enough.
The cornflower and viscaria mix looked impressive in a mass planting in summer 2024. PHOTO: LOUISE FRAMPTON
What has been your favourite display?
My favourite winter display so far would have to be a couple of years ago when it was a colder winter and the pink and white kale stood out. This year I have trialled using cyclamen Mini Figurine mix and that has done well flowering-wise.
I have a couple of favourite summer displays, but my favourite combination of plants would be cornflower mixed and viscaria mixed. They complement each other so well.
I’m a huge fan of a mixed cottage garden displays, such as cosmos, delphinium, dahlia, godetia and osteospermum.
Yellow and blue petunias were used in summer 2024.
Has there been any less successful displays?
Last summer was quite wet and I got some bad stem rot in cosmos. Every season I’m challenged with something due to our climate, but for the majority of displays they are a big success - gauged by all the positive feedback from visitors to the gardens.
How do you keep on top of the weeds?
If I’m going to be honest, weeding’s not for everyone - but it is for me. I like listening to music as it motivates me to do hours of weeding at a time. I do spend a lot of my time hand-weeding. Depending on the weather and type of weed, I can push a hoe, but in winter it’s more hand-weeding than anything.
In summer, when the temperatures are warmer, the weeds can wilt and die off much easier being push-hoed. Planting taller plants helps suppress the weeds better and that’s one of the reasons I’m a fan of taller plants.
