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An Elemental Education When She Took on Her Beautiful New Zealand Garden 40 Years Ago, Janet Blair Learned Spectacular Views Came at a Price

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An Elemental Education When She Took on Her Beautiful New Zealand Garden 40 Years Ago, Janet Blair Learned Spectacular Views Came at a Price New Zealand garden An elemental education When she took on her beautiful New Zealand garden 40 years ago, Janet Blair learned spectacular views came at a price. But with clever planting and design she has tamed the harsh southerly winds WORDS CHRISTINE REID PHOTOGRAPHS CLAIRE TAKACS In brief What Large country garden. Where Near Queenstown, New Zealand’s South Island. Size 14 acres. Soil Mainly a thin layer of loam over clay. Climate Extremes of weather; from low of -19ºC in winter to mid 30ºCs in summer. Points of interest The entire garden is Janet Blair’s creation over the past 40 years, and the garden has been given a five-star rating by the New Zealand Gardens Trust as a garden of national significance. Hedges and trees – both deciduous and evergreen – help shelter Janet’s garden as icy winds tear down the valley. 62 New Zealand garden “Gardening is really a partnership between nature and artifice” he influence of designer Russell Page’s Tclassic work The Education of a Gardener is undeniably far-reaching. Janet Blair, who gardens in the magnificent mountain scenery of New Zealand’s South Island, rates it as the book that has inspired her garden making for the past 40 years. Her remarkable garden shows how much she has absorbed of this seminal text and Page’s principles and rules. ‘A panorama and a garden seen together distract from each other. One’s interest is torn between the garden… and the excitement of the distant view… A view, too, usually means wind, and a windy garden is unrewarding,’ writes Page. His words are remarkably relevant to Janet’s garden and the challenges she faced in creating it, the first being how to retain the ‘excitement of the distant view’ and yet create a domestic-scale garden. The snow-capped peaks and panoramic skyline are the background to the garden. Page comments: ‘It is usually better to try and reduce the width of a view by planting it out so that from the house you see it only partially… it’s best done by tree-planting of the simplest kind, using only one of two varieties; trees and hedges carefully placed near the house will be enough to make a frame and a foreground’ – precisely what Janet has done. The second challenge for her has been to ameliorate the effects of the wind. “The climate and site has really dictated the Continued on page 70 This intimate area near the house is especially beautiful in autumn. Golden leaves on the apricots, in the foreground, and two standard wisterias contrast with the red leaves of the ornamental grape vine and the green of the neatly clipped box. 64 New Zealand garden A textbook study in form and structure. A quiet, almost secret pathway runs A weeping elm, right, stands out against between plantings of sorbus (right) and the hornbeam hedge; the apricots behind cornus (left). A gate at the end leads to soften the view of the house. the vegetable garden, pictured below. Janet calls this the ‘barn border’. Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’ and An ancient elderberry leans over a lavender mingle with clipped Buxus border filled with Salvia officinalis sempervirens and Laurus nobilis along this ‘Purpurascens’ and Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’. path leading to a sorbus and cornus grove. 66 New Zealand garden The garden in the landscape Janet and John Blair’s garden is tucked away in a valley among the dramatic mountain scenery of New Zealand’s South Island on a latitude of 45 degrees south. The property, on the main Lake Hayes to Arrowtown road, is slightly elevated and looks south to Lake Hayes; to the west are mountain ranges and in the south, the view is to the appropriately named mountain range, the Remarkables, with their sharp silhouettes on the skyline. To the north-west is Coronet Peak, one of New Zealand’s premier ski fields. Arrowtown, a short distance away, was a gold mining village in the 19th century where many Irish settlers tried their luck. When Janet and John found their stone cottage in this beautiful but wind-swept valley, there were no trees around the house. “Locomotive-force winds roared up from the south; there was no shelter, no shade and no birdsong,” says Janet. “I wanted to live in beauty and so I set about creating a haven by planting trees.” Facing page: The mountainous background rises above Prunus ‘Shirotae’ on the lawn, while a topiary collection makes a whimsical foreground to colourful Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’. This page: A long vista from the vegetable garden where the precise lines of box hedging direct the eye to the magnificent view beyond. 68 New Zealand garden of Janet’s key 9 plant choices 1 Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ Wonderful at every stage; the crimson stems grow without coppicing. It’s most spectacular in winter surrounded by snow. 1.5-2.5m. AGM*. RHS H7, USDA 3a-8b†. 2 Rosa Iceberg (= ‘Korbin’) Renowned for its free-flowering habit and disease-free foliage, this delicate, sweet-scented rose was first bred in Germany in 1958 and is now grown worldwide. 50cm-1m. AGM. RHS H6, USDA 4a-9a. A row of classic white Rosa x alba ‘Alba Semiplena’ stands elevated above a grassy path. 3 Parthenocissus tricuspidata ‘Veitchii’ 1 2 3 This Boston ivy is especially glorious in autumn climbing around a window. “I wanted to live in beauty, and so I set Over 12m. AGM. USDA 4a-8b. about creating a haven by planting trees” 4 Rosa x alba ‘Alba Semiplena’ One of the oldest roses, this White Rose of York flowers only once with a strong and sweet perfume but rewards in autumn with glorious hips. 1.5-2.5m. garden I’ve made. John and I found this there are lines of crisply cut angular hedges in AGM. RHS H7. stone house – it was built in 1864 – and three box, beech and hornbeam. However, any generations of an Irish family had worked it slight tendency to bulkiness is dispelled by 5 Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’ as a farm. I used to find Clydesdale horseshoes Janet’s playfulness with beds of topiary. Twirls, This purple sage has shades of blue- in the soil. There were no trees, only some spires, balls, cones – even a topiary pack of grey as it ages. 50cm-1m. AGM. RHS H5. cotton and Lombardy poplars on the cards can be found in the vegetable garden. 6 Berberis thunbergii f. atropurpurea periphery of the property. What I wanted “I’ve broken a few rules along the way, too – This tough shrub, with fierce spines has to do was make a garden for the family – to not all my box hedges are low, some of them glorious autumn colour. Easy to grow in have some shelter from the wind, some are higher than the average person,” she most soil types. 1-1.5m. RHS H4. summer shade and attract birds.” says. “I do have a leaning towards the 7 Sorbus cashmiriana A further challenge to future garden- formal garden but I have found ways Enchanting with its little white berries; 4 5 6 making was the lack of a reliable water to create a more relaxed look such as a they are like white pearls. 4-8m. supply – surprising when you see all that serpentine hedge and clipped topiary.” AGM. RHS H6, USDA 5a. snow around. “I had to bucket water to every Flowers remain relatively few. ‘Iceberg’ new plant. I can say truthfully that I have roses, lilacs and lilies; purple spikes of a 8 Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum ‘Mariesii’ planned, dug and planted everything in the favourite salvia appear on the long walk to Outstanding flowers with its widely garden. I was young and fit!” Janet says. the vegetable garden. “Generally I’ve planted spreading branches and vibrant shades Today tall trees frame the view and perennials with blue and misty blue flowers in autumn. Unusually, it’s shown here temper the wind’s force. Along the driveway to acknowledge the landscape. At evening the with autumn colour and flowering at the are horse chestnuts and ash trees, their leaves colours are beautifully complementary to the same time. Probably due to changing/ colouring superbly before they fall. Sorbus light on the mountains,” Janet says. unseasonal weather. 3m. AGM. form a line of brilliant colour in the autumn “The wind will always be a problem – the USDA 5b-9a. days, their white berries “like pearls of the southerlies and westerlies steam up the valley garden”, says Janet. All comes together as a and recently we lost huge limbs from weeping 9 Amelanchier lamarckii harmonious entity with ribbons of green willows and an ancient cotton poplar. It’s Charming in spring with white flowers and fused with striking red leaves in hedging binding the garden together. saddening when trees come smashing down autumn. 6-9m. AGM. RHS H6, Those most valuable of all garden on a neatly clipped hedge. Gardening is plants – box and yew – Janet uses to great really a partnership between nature and effect. In the early days of the garden, Janet set artifice. It’s an ever-changing pursuit. I aim *Holds an Award of Garden Merit aside an entire paddock just to have a for serenity and simplicity but there’s only from the Royal Horticultural Society. 7 8 9 propagation area for hedge making. Now one body and one pair of hands!” †Hardiness ratings given where available. 70.
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