The Dirt: Nicky Pellegrino’s garden doesn’t follow instructions

Nicky Pellegrino is a journalist, novelist and most recently the author of a book about menopause Don’t Sweat It. She lives and gardens in Pt Chevalier, Auckland, with her film producer husband Carne Bidwill.

The worst thing about menopause was probably the rages. Yes, the rages and the mood swings which I got in my early to mid-50s.

I’m 57 now. To begin with I just assumed everyone was really annoying, then it occurred to me that I was the common denominator. To be honest there were a few people I had to just not see. I loved them as friends or family but I was not in the right frame of mind.

Potentially I should have taken hormone therapy but I never did.

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Launching the book has been kind of amazing. I’ve just had all these emails from women.

Sometimes I hear from women I know; smart, super successful women and they’ve been having a miserable time but you’d never know it because you’re expected to soldier on and not show signs of weakness.

A lot of women talk about a loss of confidence. I felt imposter syndrome but, to borrow a line I heard from my hairdresser, the person I was pretending to be was myself.

I was acting the role of me. You do find your way back to yourself maybe a slightly edited version. Of course, as a writer I’m a mass of insecurity anyway.

I’m not against the odd shot of botox or whatever but I’m against the idea that we’re not allowed to look old. Our role models are these women in Hollywood without a trace of age on their faces and that worries me.

We’ve got a way to go, but I think there’s definitely a shift happening for women over 50. We have such a long life expectancy now. When you have another 30 years to live you need a mission and a purpose, not to just sidle off with a cup of tea and Coronation Street.

My dad is Italian and my mum is from Liverpool – and that’s where I grew up, in a town called Wallasey. We were wildly exotic. We ate weird food with garlic in it.

My dad is from Naples and he is bonkers. They are all completely crazy in Naples, adorable but crazy. I think Liverpool is sort of England’s version of Naples. Liverpudlians are very loud and funny.

We weren’t rich, my dad was a factory worker but he’d pile us all in the car and we’d drive through France and Switzerland in a fairly scary fashion to Italy where we’d stay with relatives.

My brothers and I were all pale skinned and ginger haired and really tall. Kids would follow us in the street and laugh at us.

The only thing I can do is tell stories. I was terrible at maths, fired as a waitress because I dropped salad on a woman’s head, fired from my job at a newsagent for clumsiness reasons too.

I got it into my head that I wanted to be a lawyer, but I didn’t think it through and I hated (studying) law so I dropped it for English literature. The only thing I could do was read books and write.

There’s a tremendous amount of literary snobbery in New Zealand and it drives me completely insane. There’s a misogyny to describing fiction by women for women as chicklit.

Some of my books have been really gritty.

I met my husband when I came out to New Zealand for my friend Sarah-Kate Lynch’s wedding in Wairarapa. She had told me that he was rich.

When I saw him I thought, he’s quite cute and think of all that lovely money! After a couple of glasses of Champagne I waltzed over and I said “I’m Nicky and I’m going to marry you”. And he said, “OK, if you like”, which I subsequently learned is what he’d say if he wanted someone to go away.

But I was very encouraged and flirted away. And he turned out not to be rich, but he is very lovely.

Not having children wasn’t an easy decision because I worried that I would regret it. But I honestly couldn’t imagine being tough enough to work fulltime and have kids.

I knew lots of women who did that and I admired them, but I didn’t think I was that robust. Plus I wanted to write novels and travel; I`ve always had dogs and horses, and a lot of my love goes to them. You have to work within your own limitations. I haven’t regretted it so far.

I’m a person who steams into things without preparing properly. I was never into gardening at all until we moved into this house which has quite a big backyard.

I was wildly enthusiastic and I planted a whole lot of stuff which was all wrong and had to come out, like one of those Washingtonia palms which grow to be really, really enormous. And a bird of paradise in a boggy bit of ground. You can’t work against nature.

Gardening is sort of like writing. There you are with a blank page, building something from the ground up…

My garden is a bit of a mess, I’m not a perfectionist about it at all, there can be weeds in there. My tomatoes are a crazy forest.

I think embracing the failures is important in all aspects of life. You can’t be a writer and spend a year on a book and send it out without the knowledge that it might fail. It’s good to have things in your life that prepare you for that.

For me, horse riding does that too. I’ve tried dressage, I’m actually rubbish at it, it’s a triumph of effort over talent.

Nicky’s gardening tips

• Take risks. This year I went crazy and planted this pack of Dahlia tubers, I didn’t know what would come up.

• Don’t feel you’ve got to follow all the instructions to the letter. I didn’t do any of the things you’re supposed to do with dahlias, I just chucked them in the ground and gave them a bit of water.

• Plant to attract wildlife. Plant flax and you’ll get masses of tui. Echinacea and zinnias (and Dahlias) fill the vege garden with butterflies and bees.