Over the course of four decades, a Hāwea gardener has worked a single rare flower into thousands, but is now set to walk away from the garden. The Trillium grandiflorum rhizome is a white, perfumeless flower commonly found in North America, which has been made available for local gardens thanks to years of work from Hāwea gardener Jamie Urquhart. Mr Urquhart said he was first gifted a single trillium by his mother, imported from New York in 1985; then, a single trillium flower would have cost $35. Over the next 45 years, he developed a collection of trilliums with the aim of exporting the flowers back to North America, but six years ago he began to sell them locally. Mr Urquhart had no formal gardening training but said he grew up around a love for growing, with his father a farmer and his mother working in a plant nursery. “I first started growing before you could search the internet on how to grow different things. “Nobody knew anything about it back then, it was all from my own personal knowledge. “Its the perfect plant because you can essentially just ignore it for 9 months of the year,” he said. “They’re actually very hearty, but their shoots are very delicate. “If you break the shoots it weakens the plant,” he said. Each flower must be split by hand and left to recover and multiply for years before it’s ready to divide again. Over the years, Mr Urquhart and his trillium plants have gained national attention, featuring on One News and Breakfast, but Mr Urquhart said this was most likely the last year he would grow and sell the flower. “I’m getting to the age where I need to pull the pin on it. “The ideal would be for someone to come and fully take over so they can keep being sold,” he said. evie.sinclair@alliedmedia.co.nz
