Anthea Doherty is more worried about possums than finding entries for the Outram Garden Club's show next Friday.
"We have an ongoing battle with possums. We got 21 on the balcony in spring," she says.
Usually the pests appear in the garden just as new growth is appearing on the roses, but this season the possums returned after Christmas, much to Anthea's disgust.
She and her husband, Kevin, farm on 415ha at Lee Stream.
The Sisters has been in Kevin's family since the 1880s and the name refers not to Doherty women but to three volcanic knolls on the land.
Kevin and Anthea came to The Sisters in 1978.
"We're ex-townies; I worked for Maf," Kevin says.
"There was a very small garden. Kevin's mother had real green fingers. She was a flower person, but I don't know how she grew what she did as there wasn't a skerrick of shelter," Anthea says.
"We get the wind every way," Kevin says.
Shelter was a priority, then because Anthea wanted "a big bit of lawn with garden around the edge", huge rocks from the farm were placed at the rim of the extended garden.
"We broke a trailer on that one," Kevin says, indicating a three-tonne monster.
After the rocks were in place and curved edges marked, bark chips were put down, a disastrous choice.
"We had only just put them down when it blew a howling gale and I think they all ended up at Lee Stream School [1km away]. I'm sure I cried," Anthea says.
"We use white gravel now," Kevin says.
The climate at Lee Stream is harsh, with snow every winter, so plants have to be tough.
The growing season is short and Anthea says flowers bloom one to two months later than in Dunedin.
That may sound a bit depressing, but the garden has plenty of colour and variety.
In winter, conifers display their charms - "I wouldn't be without conifers," Anthea says.
Neatly clipped by Kevin into simple columns and pyramids, they vary from blue-green to gold, a warm note on cold days.
"The rhododendrons are beautiful in spring. They seem to like it here," Anthea says.
Flowering cherries, Clematis and a vast white-flowered Australian mint bush (Prostanthera) follow, then in December clumps of lupins bloom throughout the garden.
"I love lupins. I know they're only old things but at Christmas time, they're beautiful," Anthea says.
Later, if the possums haven't chomped them, there are roses, as well as lavender, delphiniums and other perennials in beds close to the house.
•Be there
The Outram flower show will be held at the Outram church hall, Holyhead St, on Friday, February 20.
The show is open to the public from 2pm to 7pm, admission is $1, afternoon tea $2 and there will be a market table.
