It was a warm evening of high light, which is the way light is in this country – high and spread and unfiltered, even in this season. From where we sat, we had a fine view of the forward portion of my grandfather’s garden: the stone patio at the front of the house, stepping stones which emerged from there, mounds and banks where shrubs had been trimmed into boulder shapes. Some of these ‘boulders’ remained a glossy green, others were tight with red, white or pink flowers. In other places, flowers spiked up, blue, purple, yellow, but even so the impression was of muted colour. ‘In their own contexts,’ my grandmother said, ‘flowers to enhance or surprise but not to overtake, some varieties which smelled lovely by the door.’ They were plants I’d seen in other parts of the world, most of which I couldn’t name in English until informed by my grandmother.

Others I’d never seen before coming here. There was a harakeke bush which I took an interest in because it was the plant the old ones had used for their basket-weaving, watched by Grandfather Chappy that long time ago, inspiring him to make and add his bamboo containers to their collection. These bushes grew prolifically on farmland and roadsides, and the plantation was still thriving round the spring at Uncle Aki’s. The garden one kept its strong, green blades throughout the seasons. Thick, black stalks emerged in spring, tipped by bulging encasements. These opened into bright orange flowers as the weather became warm, later forming black, rattling pods that curled and split, dispersing seed in late summer.

There was a cluster of three ponga trees, all kept at different heights. Easy to grow, my grandmother explained; a matter of cutting sections of black trunk to the required lengths and placing them in the ground. With plenty of water, the trunks take root at the base and ferns spread outward from their tops to form wide umbrellas.

Three and five were numbers that belonged in the garden. Large rocks of different heights and shapes were positioned in threes or fives, sometimes in screened areas, sometimes in the open where they had the appearance of large animals at rest on the twinkling shingle.

The most natural aspect incorporated into the garden was the small creek coming from the back through to the front of the property. My grandparents’ first house had been on the other side of this, close to the road. Spanning the narrow waterway was an arched wooden bridge. Bulrushes, stone areas and grasses were built into the creek’s banks.

The most formed features were the bridge itself, the screens and fences, the shade-house, and two elegant structures of carved stone. One of these was a lantern made of rock shaped and piled in sections. A flat-topped base supported a pillar, which gave height to a platform. On the platform sat the ‘firebox’ and its cover.