Had it not been for the flood that devastated Balclutha in 1878, The Star Garden Book probably never would have been written.
The flood - caused by a combination of huge winter snowfalls in the mountains, a September thaw that saw all rivers in flood and then an October downpour - inundated low-lying land. Clyde, Alexandra, Roxburgh and Millers Flat were massively damaged, and when the floodwaters reached Balclutha, the town was inundated. One person drowned in the floods.
"Not only did the water spread deep throughout the town, but a fierce current raced along the streets wreaking havoc. The whole of the Clutha-Kaitangata area presented an unbroken expanse of swirling muddy water. Apart from damage to roads, bridges, buildings, and railway lines, the loss in farm livestock was enormous and its total was never accurately assessed. Many newly-established settlers and settlements were ruined," the 1966 Encyclopedia of New Zealand records.
Among those ruined settlers was a young Balclutha nurseryman Henry (Harry) Clarke, whose house and business had been swept away down the raging Clutha River.
Losing his Balclutha property was not the first disaster for Harry. When he arrived in Port Chalmers on the Lutterworth in 1872, his luggage was stolen from the wharf. For the 17-year-old, it must have been a bitter introduction to his new homeland.
After the grandeur of the English property where he trained, Harry may have found the unfettered atmosphere of Otago to his liking or perhaps he simply did not have the fare to go home. Whatever the reason, he stayed.
Most of the pioneering gardeners and horticulturists in Otago - the likes of William Martin, David Bower, George Matthews and James Gebbie - were Scotsmen, but Harry was English. Trained at Hartwell House, near his Buckinghamshire birthplace, he had probably been working since he was 12, or possibly even 10 years old, so he would have been well grounded in horticulture when he arrived in Otago.
The gardens at Hartwell, now a boutique hotel, were laid out at the start of the 18th century, in the formal style of the day with allées, temples, columns, an obelisk, garden statuary and canals. Within 50 years, many of those features had been swept away when the garden was revamped in the "natural" style of Lancelot (Capability) Brown, although there still would have been plenty of work for the gardening staff. Restored between 1987 and 1992 by Historic House Hotels, Hartwell House, 65km from London, still has some 35ha of grounds.
In 2001, 10,000 daffodils were planted and in the orchard old varieties of apples are grown, while the walls of the former kitchen garden support apricot, peach, pear and plum trees, of the same varieties as those planted in 1868, doubtless familiar to Harry.
The researches of his great-grandson, Bill Daly, of Dunedin, have found the record of Harry's marriage to Shetland Islander Margaret Graham in Dunedin, in January 1875, and it is possible they moved to South Otago after that.
"Harry would then have been aged 20 and Margaret 30 [when they married]. She had nine children with Harry but sadly three died whilst quite young," Mr Daly says.
After the Balclutha flood, the couple returned to Dunedin and Harry went to work for George (later Sir George) McLean, MP for Waikouaiti and the first chairman of directors of the Union Steamship Company.
But it was as head gardener for industrialist Robert (later Sir Robert) Glendining that Harry was to make his mark. His return to Dunedin was marred with sadness, though.
"Margaret died on August 7, 1888, aged only 43," Mr Daly says.
Harry and his second wife, Barbara, also a Shetland Islander, were married in 1889 and had five children, born between 1893 and 1907, Mr Daly says.
Working at Nithvale, the 4ha Glendining property "in beautiful sylvan surroundings" as the 1905 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand trumpeted, must have been a little like Hartwell in miniature. Sir Robert was as enthusiastic as his gardener and his garden, with rose gardens, vinery and an extensive kitchen garden and orchard, was considered one of the best in the country.
On his employer's behalf, Harry won numerous awards, particularly for roses, at shows run by the Dunedin Horticultural Society, which he joined in 1886.
Sir Robert encouraged Harry Clarke's interest in hybridising and he produced numerous new begonias and pelargoniums, as well as at least three potato varieties, but surprisingly there is no record of Harry breeding roses, although he gave lectures on their cultivation and judged them at DHS shows.
In 1908, Harry's life took another turn. C. Stanley Smith, a director of The Evening Star and grandfather of Allied Press managing director Julian Smith, arranged for the Dunedin gardener to write a column for the newspaper. Harry gave advice on what to do in the garden each week and answered readers' questions.
Some of his advice was tough - "You did not do what I told you," one hapless gardener was informed when he asked why his redcurrant crop had failed - but the public loved the Saturday columns and in 1911 they were published in book form as The Star Garden Annual.
The columns reflected the practices of the day, with long dissertations on the home orchard and the vinery, as well as the assumption that everyone had plenty of space, time and staff.
Harry recommended an asparagus bed as big as most modern gardens, his celery was earthed up, leeks put in trenches and mushrooms grown in a dark shed on "one or two good loads" of horse manure turned regularly until the temperature was right for adding the spawn.
In between writing his Saturday columns, Harry Clarke became heavily involved in his employer's project to give Dunedin a winter garden and because Sir Robert was unwell, Mr Daly says his great-grandfather was given a free hand in plantings in the Botanic Garden feature, opened in 1909 to huge acclaim.
Harry Clarke left Nithvale and bought a Green Island nursery about 1910, naming it Hartwell and remaining there until his retirement in 1918.
His retirement was almost as busy as his working life, as he was in demand as a judge, garden designer and adviser on soils and was to continue working on The Star Garden Book, as it was now called, being responsible for seven editions.
He died in 1935, at the age of 79, but his work lives on.
Comparing a 1913 edition of The Star Garden Book with the latest version, the 17th edition, some phrases and suggestions are evocative of Harry Clarke, almost as if a form of gardening DNA has been transmitted through the pages over the decades.
• The ayes have it
On May 19, 1909, an Otago Witness report of the Dunedin Horticultural Society's autumn show noted: "Among the exhibits were a number of samples of a new potato, produced by Mr H. Clarke, Mr Glendining's gardener.
The Blue Derwent for a great many years has been New Zealand's principal potato but, owing to carelessness in its cultivation, it has of late years shown serious tendency towards `running out'.
Growers have realised that the life of the Derwent as it is now is limited, and efforts have been made to reinvigorate it.
This result, apparently, has been achieved by Mr Clarke, who has crossed the Derwent with the Sutton Cross, and has grown a potato that is large, succulent and well shaped and that has a tremendously heavy yield.
A boxfull [sic] on exhibition at the show was stated to comprise 150 large potatoes, all of which came from one shaw. Mr Clarke expects big things of his new production, which he has named the 'Dreadnought'.
"Many growers inspected the tubers closely, and expressed satisfaction with their appearance. There were also on exhibition, from the hands of the same grower, two other new kinds of potato, both the product, of course, of the new variety and each, if not as prolific as the 'Dreadnoughts', at least large and symmetrical in appearance," the report said.
Unfortunately, Dreadnought and its parents appear to have vanished from Otago gardens.
• Harry's hybrids
Pelargoniums were among Harry Clarke's most successful hybridising efforts.
The Otago Witness of January 13, 1898, recorded: The new pelargoniums . . . were grown by Mr Harry Clarke, gardener to Mr R. Glendining. For these Mr Clarke was awarded by the [horticultural] society's Certifying Committee seven certificates for flowers named as under:- Mrs Harry Clarke, Methvale Glen, and Golden Gate, each first class; Maggie Glendining, Kate Carnegie, Henry Hopper, and Edward Dyke Lee, each second class.
The committee also agreed that Mr Clarke was to be congratulated on his success in raising such plants, the exhibits as a whole being of special merit, as frequently hundreds of plants are raised with but few blooms of such excellence.
Since the show, some of the committee, at Mr Clarke's invitation, have visited the garden and the house where the pelargoniums are in full bloom. One of the visitors, who had been in the Home country some two years back, said that the pelargonium was equal, if not superior, to any he had seen during his visit.
On seeing some of the plants that were hardly in flower during the show now in full bloom it was decided to advance Maggie Glendining, a very distinct shaded lilac bloom, to the first class, and also to award a first-class certificate to Ian McLaren and a beautiful unnamed distinct dark pelargonium, which the committee named Countess of Ranfurly.
• The editors
The Star Garden Book has had just four editors in almost a century. Harry Clarke edited seven editions.
In 1955, Evening Star accountant Bruce Campbell, who wrote the newspaper's gardening columns as Green Fingers, took over, and edited eight editions. Tony Harris, a senior journalist at the Otago Daily Times was responsible for the 1990 edition.
The new version has been prepared by Allied Press garden writer Gillian Vine, who has revised the material for today's gardeners. Coloured photographs are included for the first time, as are fact panels and a section on natives for southern gardens.
• Win one . . .
The Otago Daily Times has five copies of the new edition of the Star Garden Book to give away.
To enter the draw for one, write your name, address and daytime phone number on the back of an envelope and send it to Star Garden Book, Editorial Features, Response Bag 500014, Dunedin, or email playtime@odt.co.nz with Star Garden Book in the subject line, to arrive before Thursday, December 18.
. . . or buy one
The book, retailing at $35, will be available from the Star Stationery Shop, 52 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin, from Tuesday. Phone (03) 479-3579.
