Southern flower power

You're going where to judge a garden competition?" friends asked incredulously when I said I was heading south.

"Dunsandel," I muttered. "Near Christchurch."

"How many gardens?" they chortled? "Three?"

"Twenty actually," I said, beginning to feel, as any ex-pat Mainlander would, a little protective of the tiny town whose famous Store Cafe and Deli is its biggest claim to fame.

My defence of the town's garden competition was entirely unnecessary. Believe me, Dunsandel can hold its own with any garden safari in the country.

I've often lamented the fact that my own garden has never made it into the local garden safari, but now I'm really, really glad.

Having spent this past weekend judging other people's efforts, I'm hugely grateful nobody has cast a critical eye over mine and rated them for intent, design, planting, style and care.

Heaven knows what my intent was when I bought 150 lime trees underplanted with kikuya, bordered by shelter belts and surrounded by a flood-prone stream, but it probably wasn't what I have now. I might have scored quite well on design, although it's probably difficult for an outsider to identify some of the elements that haven't quite got there yet. Planting - hmmm, the jury's out on that one, and style, well, I suppose our garden has one, although I'm not certain what it is.

As far as care goes, it would depend entirely on how many days we'd recently spent wielding the trimmer, the fork, the loppers, the secateurs and the lawn mower, and whether or not the neighbours' goats had recently orchestrated a successful prison bust.

So while The Partner, dogged by intermittent showers and gloomy skies, investigated our local garden safari in the Far North, I basked in 24C brilliant sunshine, a gentle breeze and not even the hint of a tremor in the region that rocks.

There were 20 entries in the Dunsandel competition and I came away from every one of them with a lengthy wish list. Oh, I wish we could grow rhodies like that at home. Oh, I wish we had a bowling green lawn. Oh, I wish I knew how to make it look so ... excellent.

But despite rhododendrons in full bloom, gorgeous dogwoods and cherry blossoms to die for, the most impressive plant I saw anywhere - and everywhere - was rhubarb. In virtually every garden there was a massive rhubarb plant and I met a cauliflower as big as a Mini and several families of elephantine broccoli.

It seems everyone in the countryside grows vegetables, and Mainlanders are very laissez faire about it. They don't fuss, they don't sweat the small stuff, they don't panic if their potatoes don't look stylish, and they probably don't spend the equivalent of most people's grocery bills on root lifter, root sinker, liquid food, solid food, seaweed flavoured fertiliser and berry booster. They throw on the odd shovel of chook poo, horse poo or whatever kind of poo is available, and let the vegetables get on with it.

Dunsandel's vegetable gardens are not contained in raised beds with fancy edging, purpose-built concrete planters or half-round barrels of French oak. Most are large and rambling, flat on the ground and the effort has gone into function, not form. Everyone mentioned how much their kids enjoyed both growing and eating the produce. "Our kids eat just about everything raw," one commented. Easy to see why.

At the other end of the spectrum, the decorative areas of the gardens were extraordinarily fabulous. Their intent was always clear, whether it was to present a perfect face to the street or to create a casual, rambling wilderness full of wildflowers and secret walkways.

Choosing winners in the various categories - which I am still considering as I write this - is going to be a challenge. In the end, it turns out not to be just about gardens, but about people. We've all found out in the past year that the people of Canterbury are indomitable, and that fact was brought home again by many of the Dunsandel entrants. One was on crutches - had been for several years. Another had just had his arm broken by a recalcitrant cow.

The owner of one of the most pristine gardens had to pace herself because of severe arthritis. A young woman just about to have her second baby was working hard to establish a fairly new garden while looking after an army of chickens, several ducks, three dogs, a toddler and a miniature pony.

I came home to hot, damp weather, a very long lawn, a pond that has been engulfed by plants that have doubled in size in just four days, four gargantuan basil plants - yay - and six unpromising lettuces. No rhododendrons. No flowering dogwood. No wildflowers. Huge garden envy. Back to the drawing board, then.