Ti kouka is the maori name for Cordyline australis, a plant from New Zealand that grows in our gardens. It is here in my front garden. When we were buying this house we would identify it by the ti kouka ( I’m trying to use the maori name so I can remember it, it seems right) growing in the front garden. It’s an architectural plant – it stands out, all spikey and dramatic. It gets called a cabbage palm because it’s flowers, when they come, look like the flowers of a cabbage – which isn’t very useful because how often do you see cabbages flowering? Ti kouka, I say.

Now, as you probably know by now, my garden is all about edible plants. Ti kouka does not look very edible, but it is. The sugary roots and stems, known as kāuru, were slow-cooked in earth ovens (umu tī), while the tender, young inner leaf shoots, or kōuka, were eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable. So says my friend the internet. I have tried the inner leaf shoots, and I’m glad I don’t have to live on them. But this information did mean the tree could stay, and we would still be able to find our house.

And then it died. In December 2022 temperatures got very low and every part of it above ground died. In 2023 we put strings on the old stem and grew beans on it and then sometime that year or the next shoots appeared around the base. It was still alive. Eventually I cut away the old stem and selected the most vigorous new shoot to make the renewed tree, and ti kouka was back.

And we can find our way home again.