But not Australia.

Rumex flexuosus is a dock. I don’t really need to plant docks here – they do that themselves, very successfully. But like many plants from New Zealand, it is a bit odd. The New Zealand flora has a habit of throwing curve balls when it comes to members of familiar genera, let alone all the genera that are not found elsewhere. There are clematis without leaves, fuchsias with tiny, upright flowers, blue gentians are white, and brown foliage is everywhere. Think of those coppery sedges. And Rumex flexuosus has brown leaves. The same colour as Haloragis erecta ‘Wellington Bronze’ a plant I am happy to grow and have yet to mention – I will remedy that tomorrow.

In New Zealand this dock grows in grass and areas that are often damp and among rocks and in grass. It grows on both main Islands. In the garden it has several uses. Although I have never considered it as an edible, it is sometimes grown as such, the leaves having typical ‘oxalic acid’ taste. In the wild Maori people used it on wounds including piercings. I like it for the appearance of the leaves. They are long and tend to flop against the soil. I have grown it many times before and it usually self seeds gently and is far nicer, in my opinion. than the popular ‘bloody dock’ (Rumex sanguineus).

Sown in spring, they germinate without any special treatment and I planted some out in May in the seaside garden. The idea is that they look like seaweed so I put some in the raised beds in the seaside garden. However, despite them never obviously attacking wild docks, the snails immediately devoured the seedlings. I was more than annoyed. But some of the plants managed to grow through the attacks. The rest of the batch were planted in a flower bed under a golden conifer and around a patch of crocosmia. Here they have grown well.

It is perennial and in summer it pushes up straggly, much-branching, airy stems of tiny brown flowers. I like it best before this stage but the unusual colour is nice at every stage although I am sure most people just think I have been sloshing the glyphosate around!