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Bruce and Raewyn’s lake has a blue dye that keeps it algae free.
Bruce and Raewyn may be the first in the world to have intertwined two bottle trees.
Clivia in flower.
Bruce Whistler
Business is booming at Matakana Palms, which has sold triple the amount of plants it usually would over the last six months.
“Everyone has been concentrating on their garden since early into the lockdown, not having been able to travel overseas,” owner Bruce Whistler says.
He says a change is as good as a holiday and tropical palms add to the overseas holiday feel.
His most popular palm is a Pitt Island Nikau from the Chatham Islands.
Compared to mainland Nikaus, which need the shade of bush canopy, the Pitt Island variant is able to thrive in the open.
“They are used to a cold, windy climate, so they do particularly well on the warmer mainland.”
Matakana Palms also sells Kermadec Island Nikaus, which are a lighter green variation.
One of Matakana Palms’ more exotic specimens is the Parajubaea cocoides, which grows small edible coconuts.
It comes from the mountains of Ecuador and tolerates cold temperatures particularly well.
Another attractive specimen is the Dypsis baronii, or Sugar Cane Palm, which grows several palms in tight clumps.
Bruce believes he and his wife Raewyn are the first in New Zealand to grow it commercially.
He also has Australian glauca grass trees, which are not a palm, and grow thin grass like blades atop a thick trunk.
Somewhat similar are the Australian Bottle trees, which have thick bulbous trunks that can grow 1.5 metres thick and have leafy foliage on top.
Bruce says palm maintenance is easy, requiring watering just once a week for the first two seasons and fertiliser twice a year.
“It is best to put mulch on them in the dry summer, but other than that you can’t go too far wrong.”
Bruce’s other hot seller right now is hybridised clivia plants from South Africa, which are currently flowering.
Meanwhile, Bruce and Raewyn have been building their dream garden with a lake with water up to chest-height, an artificial beach and an island accessed by a bridge.
A large boulder waterfall is under construction and will soon to be joined by a waterside pavilion with floating decks.
He has no definitive plans, but may open it up as a wedding venue in the future.
