OTAGO PENINSULA

When planting a golden full moon maple, finding the perfect spot is just the beginning.

- The care and thought that goes into planting a single tree.

Branches of this treasured tree died back because of the infection that came from the soil. It had been planted in an intimate courtyard garden which is between four stone or masonry buildings so ground water had nowhere to drain away. The buildings are a vinery now used as a shadehouse, a creamery, the stone gardener’s cottage and a chunky castle. We couldn’t realistically shift these buildings. It was a conundrum.

But why did we cherish this tree? Its beauty is captivating. As the palmate leaves unfurl in spring, they glow like the moonlight. In summer, leaves age to a green that is light and tender, their stance like dancers on this elegant tree. Autumn colours are bright orange to vivid red.

And why did we have to put a new tree back just where its predecessor had been?

In nature, this maple is an understorey tree, therefore its leaves burn in hot, bright sun. In full shade, the moonlight colour is lost. Leaves turn green. Dappled light is needed for this primadonna to glow in full splendour. Wind is an enemy.

It’s pretty tricky on our windswept hill to find the perfect and sheltered site. So this was it. You enter this chosen space, this little courtyard, from a doorway in a passage. The full moon maple is positioned centre stage as suits a great lady.

And problems are really solutions in disguise. The solution to the problem of the drainage was to raise the tree above the soggy soil. And how? Plant it in a bottomless pot.

The container chosen was an industrial concrete Humes pipe, actually a manhole, they told me. It is 1200mm across. This all seemed like a pretty good idea. The pipe was lifted and offloaded onto and off transport by a mechanical lifter. Then it was rolled close to the site by castle staff. All good.

A large hole was dug and the soil removed. Aggregate was put in a circular trench, then compacted, so as to take the weight of the pipe so it wouldn’t sink.

Levels had to be corrected too. The garden sloped slightly but not the top of our “container”.

But just how was this industrial item to be positioned into this great hole in the middle of the garden? Our heroic garden staff had to lift it. Fortunately, yes fortunately, it went in just right. It was then encircled with a ring of concrete bricks. The grey concrete was given a wash of ferrous oxide to warm up the colour. It sure took a lot of soil and drainage material to fill up our ever so large, new container. But the replacement golden full moon maple was planted and thrives.

I underplanted this container with snowdrops, and also the surrounding garden so that in winter, when the maple branches are bare, we have a split level snowdrop garden. I planted Japanese hakonechloa grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’), its foliage the same pale glowing gold as the maple, to come up in spring and flow from the container like a fountain. Rabbits ate most of the hakonechloa grass. You can’t win them all.

We had a problem: a soil pathogen in a poorly drained plot which caused dieback in a Japanese golden full moon maple (Acer shirasawanum ‘Aureum’).