A patch of green

摘要

Kath Irvine's home and business is a colourful advertisement for her permacultural passion. The directions to Kath Irvine's idyllic Ohau river valley property include the words "look for the tree house in the pohutukawa". After a meander down a quietHorowhenua country road and over a one-lane bridge, we find her in her gumboots, working in the garden. Tucked into the foothills of the Tararua Ranges, just south of Levin, Kath's home and business, Edible Backyard, is the perfect advertisement for herpassion - permaculture design. Her potager vegetable garden, bounded by low stone walls, is full of cottage flowers and humming with bees. Borage, camomile and echinacea, with its cartoon-like deep pink flowers, flourish among the New Zealand spinach, leeks, herbs and salad greens. Most of the flowers are here to attract beneficial insects to the garden. But there are others, such as chocolate cosmos and heliotrope, with its vanilla fragrance, that Kath has planted just because she adores the scent.