The Blue House is one of those gardens you reflect on for some time. It is a newly established garden on the outskirts of Amberley that exudes a sense of calm: restful long grasses with colourful peaceful hues, country views, and the gentle sound of a stream babbling nearby.
Jenny Cooper is an avid gardener and one of New Zealand’s best-known illustrators of children’s books. When she and partner Chris Raateland left Christchurch after the 2010 earthquakes, they wanted a new garden to develop and to create a sense of calm out of all the post-quake madness around them.
While they were happy to move away from the city, many of the properties they found were too large at four hectares, however eventually they found 4,600 square metres of sheep paddock on the outskirts of Amberley. It had a stream and big established hedges on the eastern boundary – perfect for privacy and protection from the gnarly easterlies. However, there was no house, which Jenny describes as a ‘scary proposition’.
Nevertheless, they purchased in 2013, and nine years later visitors are gobsmacked by what the pair have achieved in dry and windy North Canterbury, in such a short time.
Of course, it hasn’t been all plain sailing. Jenny’s gardening experience was of urban gardens with fences, established trees and an endless free water supply. In contrast this section was bare, bordered by a wire farm fence, with an average rainfall of 650 mm, heavy frosts in winter, and destructive north-west winds plus a strong prevailing easterly wind. A cocktail for destruction!
‘Nine years ago, we enthusiastically began by hand-digging the paddock grass, which seemed to be 80 per cent couch. I worked in compost, mulching and feeding to the max, as I have always done. It was soon obvious that my old gardening methods were not working here,’ recalls Jenny. ‘Yes, the garden was lovely and floriferous, but too time consuming, especially as we both work full time. The plants were soft and lush, constantly needing food, support and water; I felt I was never on top of things, and was craving calm.
‘Eventually through extensive research I decided that I was building too much potential into the already good soil … potential not just for lush plants, but weeds, the need for water and wind breakages. I realised it wasn’t necessary to have the garden revving at this very high rate, and eventually I developed an assortment of new techniques to slow the growth of plants and bring them into balance with the land.’
Now when Jenny begins a new area, she either sprays the paddock or covers it with cardboard so the grasses die; soil is not turned, the roots break down in place, ready to feed the next generation of plants. The wide beds are mulched deeply with ramial woodchip, which is the whole tree mulched up. This is done in autumn, and the deeply mulched beds can happily sit for months waiting to be gradually planted. Almost all the plants are grown from cuttings, and planted small, only a few inches high. No soil amendments are added, no food of any sort, and most of the potting mix is removed at planting time. The woodchip and no-dig method encourages the growth of mycorrhizal fungi in the sandy loamy soil and the mycorrhiza brings nutrients and water to the young plants.
Jenny’s approach is to stress the plants in their lean beds so they put their roots down rather than waiting for the irrigation near the surface. Many of her most resilient plants are Mediterranean in nature, forming mounds which shade out weeds and are more self-supporting, show better colour, and have fewer fungal diseases and require much less water.
‘I was a compost girl for years,’ she continues. ‘But I’ve learnt that many dry-loving plants are happier, healthier and express their character better when grown really “hard”.
‘We are slow-gardening, concentrating on encouraging good root systems to cope with the lack of water. I choose not to have permanent irrigation. It makes both plants and gardeners dependent, but we do drag hoses around in summer if we have to. We follow a no-dig philosophy, keeping carbon in our soil and preserving soil microbiome so we never have to add compost or food of any sort, except for vegetables and the orchard area.’
One of the key things Jenny learnt was to plant in very strict watering zones – each bed is planned so that every plant within that bed has the same watering needs. Just one drooping plant in a bed is enough to make her want to put on a hose but by carefully matching watering needs there’s less panic over North Canterbury’s very long dry summer.
‘Now I can look at our mound forming silver plants and tough perennials; their presence is so calm and bright, and yet so resilient. I can relax knowing that they are planted for their conditions so I don’t have to worry about them during a six-day spring nor’wester or a three-month summer drought.’
Jenny closely watches the plants’ health and if they aren’t coping, they move stressed plants closer to the shade and the stream on the naturally damper eastern border. On the higher, western side of the property are the sun and dry-loving plants: olive trees, pistachio trees, sumac, underplanted with baptisia, bupleurum, phlomis, succulents, santolina, salvia, sedum and so on. ‘We had to understand the climate, the environment and pair it with our own time restraints to truly begin to enjoy the garden.’
Jenny’s other techniques to keep the large garden manageable is she uses fewer plants that require deadheading. Apart from her Hammett dahlias, everything simply needs shearing once or twice a year. She loves the naturalistic look of small, flowered plants, and likes to enjoy roses and delphiniums in other people’s gardens.
Shade trees are in most of her beds and eventually some trees will be edited out, but nothing is fixed, the garden changes every year and both Jenny and Chris love to stand back and watch the natural changes.
They are constantly reducing the lawn size. Lawns in North Canterbury are often not watered and allowed to go brown in summer. They have a large area of ‘no-mow’ lawn, where the lawn is allowed to grow long and flower in summer, and then cut back in autumn, reverting to normal lawn over winter. ‘We love the no-mow lawn, watching the seed heads dance in the breeze and seeing the colours of the grasses slowly turn to shades of red and copper.’ Chris describes it as one of his favourite parts of the garden as there’s nothing to do, but he laughs when he recalls how his neighbours ask him if his lawnmower has broken down!
Chris works as a landscaper and builder and Jenny is forever grateful for his input into the now finished house and the various garden projects. Currently he is building a large covered paved pergola to add to the enjoyment of the garden, which will be a feature of this year’s Hurunui Garden Festival.
Both Jenny and Chris love opening their garden to the public. ‘It’s been so encouraging meeting so many interested young people who are now looking at gardening from a new perspective [with] a renewed interest in soil ecology and regenerative practices, and after talking to them at garden open days I feel very inspired. Like the future of gardening is in good hands,’ Jenny adds.
Looking ahead Jenny is looking forward to the more established areas of the garden maturing and ‘becoming calmer as plants find their own place. Our trees are six to eight years old and beginning to develop their own personalities. You develop a garden with the best of your knowledge, but as it matures it takes over from the gardener and begins to express itself in ways you might never imagine.
‘I am happy to stand back and see what happens.’
The Blue House at Amberley is open to the public as part of the Hurunui Garden Festival, held 27–30 October. A wonderful event guaranteed to inspire those green thumbs!
Recent stories
