Southern Cross
This magnificent garden near Levin, featuring a Celtic cross hedge, is literally a dream come true.
At Rangihou Bay in the Bay of Islands is the Marsden Cross, a striking monument marking the spot where the Reverend Samuel Marsden held the first Christian service in New Zealand in 1814. It’s more than a few kilometres from that place in Northland to Shear-Haven – a garden north of Levin – but there’s a very close, you could say, spiritual connection between the two. Shear-Haven is owned by Lloyd and Heather Shearman, and in their garden is another magnificent cross, this one not vertical but horizontal, over 80m long and formed by clipped hedges. This living version of the same circle and cross symbol in the Marsden memorial is also known as the Celtic or Irish cross, due to its adoption by the Celts in Ireland during the Middle Ages. Interestingly, Lloyd had never seen any images of the Marsden Cross nine years ago when he first decided to develop a formal garden based on its shape. He did, however, have a deep interest in both Celtic history and garden design. But the initial idea was actually sparked by a vivid dream. “It was 4am in the morning and I woke up with a clear picture in my head of a hedged cross. It was almost like a vision, it was so clear. There were people walking up and down the cross, almost as if they were walking through the Christian history of New Zealand,” says Lloyd. “We are Christians but this kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. I jumped out of bed immediately and sketched the shape.”
This visionary experience had a big impact on Lloyd. The couple began looking for a property where they could realise his vision. They were living in Palmerston North at the time and although Heather was still working, Lloyd had been retired for four years and had been after a new garden project. “There was nothing left to do in our existing garden. My hobby is garden design and everywhere I have lived, I’ve developed gardens,” he says.
But this particular garden would need a special kind of property. It took them two and half years to find the right one. “We looked from Martin down south to the Kapiti area,” Lloyd recalls. “We wanted it to be accessible – not in some remote location. In my dream, there had been people walking the length of the cross so it needed to be somewhere people could easily locate and access.”
Finally, in 2011 they found a lifestyle block that had been subdivided off the adjacent farm 8km north of Levin, right on SH1. It would be easy for people to visit. The property was just under 2.5 hectares, half planted in trees and gardens, the other half in pasture. “The previous owners Jim and Gae Steward loved trees,” Heather explains. “Over a 40-year period they planted over 300 trees and shrubs, many of them to form an avenue on the lower lawn, others in front of house, as well as apples, citrus and other fruit trees. I’m told they would plant a tree almost every week.”
“It was virtually an arboretum by the time we first saw the property,” adds Lloyd. “The trees were what attracted us to the property. Their position around the boundaries
“It was 4am in the morning and I woke up with a clear picture in my head of a hedged cross. It was almost like a vision, it was so clear.”
meant we could see that there was space within, where we could develop a substantial structural garden, so they would complement each other.”
Another positive was the excellent soil – a good sandy loam with no clay or stones and an abundance of water. “One of the paddocks is peat,” says Heather. “It had originally been a lake that has since been drained. So there’s a high water table. In fact, the lowest paddock is not very usable in winter because it is too swampy.”
The couple were also intrigued by the history of the property. “From the earliest days there was a lakeside M¯aori occupation site. Apparently the inhabitants used to carry their waka to the Manawatu River to travel through the gorge to the east coast. In the late 19th century, flax-growing and harvesting was the major activity in this area. Bullock drays would be loaded where the circular front driveway is now located and from there begin their 10km trek to the Foxton flax-stripping mill. After World War II, the property was progressively drained and stumped to become part of a productive farming operation,” recounts Lloyd.
The couple spent several months planning the layout of the cross, getting the measurements accurate for the basic structure. “It had to be absolutely precise,” Lloyd says. “We were building two pergolas either end of the cross and they had to be concreted in place. Heather’s brother who is a builder helped us work out with the axis lines, both vertical and horizontal, so they could be viewed from the lounge window. It wasn’t easy.”
During this period, Lloyd was also developing other areas of the garden, following the formal style he intended to use for the cross. Heather explains: “He loves the work of Australian garden designer Paul Bangay and has based the style on his methods of formal mass planting. We have eight types of hedging, including banksia on the road frontage to provide shelter from coastal wind and salt, traffic fumes and SH1 noise; pittosporum by the south gate; buxus hedging in the house garden; griselinia on one of the terraces; and 56 hornbeam trees in a half circle to form a 25m easterly wind shelterbelt. “
For the cross hedging, the couple selected Escallonia ‘Fields Scarlet’, a fast grower that needs lots of trimming, but Lloyd knew rapid growth was essential for the cross to work visually. “If the existing trees had only been a year or two old, we would have used buxus or and the like for low, slow-growing hedging. But because they are 40 years old, we had to find something that would grow into a substantial 2m hedge quite quickly. There had to be synergy between the two,” he explains. “We found 400 tiny, 4cm seedlings at Southern Woods Plant Nursery in Christchurch. They couriered them up and told us we had three days from date of dispatch in Christchurch to get them in the ground as they were in very small pots.”
“We knew the garden needed to be something that people didn’t just look at from a distance but could walk through and be a part of.”
Luckily they had some good friends to call on. Lloyd had marked out the position of each seedling with an orange spray can in advance and a dozen friends turned up. All 400 seedlings were planted in two hours.
“We planted the cross in 2014 and three years later the plants were as high as we needed. The hedge ranges in height from 1.3m to just over 2m in the centre of the cross. It had to be sufficiently high for people to be able to see the surrounding trees as they walk through, but not the adjacent ground. So they feel immersed in it.”
And what made him decide to make the cross 80m long? “In my dream, people were walking away from me, receding into the distance. It occurred to me the cross had to be something you had to travel through. So we built it with that in mind. We knew the garden needed to be something that people didn’t just look at from a distance but could walk through and be part of. And it has proven to be. Quite a few people come and just sit in the garden and meditate, read books, even sleep on the benches.”
Indeed the effect on people visiting the garden has been quite profound. “People say when they start walking down there it’s almost as if the stress of day just leaves them,” says Heather. “They feel peaceful, rested and rejuvenated when they finish the walk. Some people compare it to being in a cathedral. They say the huge trees outside the cross are like buttresses and the cross itself is the knave.”
They have never advertised their garden to the public; people hear of it through word of mouth. “Once we started establishing the garden we had so many people visiting we didn’t dare advertise,” Lloyd confesses. “We hold fundraisers here for the local school and so forth. We’ve also had three weddings so far. We put the marquee on the top terrace and the service is held in the cross.”
Despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease seven years ago, Lloyd still does a lot of the maintenance, clipping the fast-growing escallonia five times a year on a large wheeled four-wheel scooter. “Just getting from one end of garden to the other, I used to find I’d be too tired to do any clipping. So I jettisoned the manual clippers and now use battery-operated tools. I stand on the scooter platform which is just the right height to clip the hedges. With the ride-on mower it takes me four hours to do the lawns, that is far too tiring for me. So a half an hour a day is a much better idea.
“We do some gardening every day. When my doctor first diagnosed my Parkinson’s, we had just bought the property and he asked me why I had bought such a large piece of land. Last year when I saw him he said he thought I would have been in a wheelchair by now. It’s the gardening every day that keeps me going.”
Lloyd and Heather are also often helped in the garden by a group of 21 friends who come from as far as Wellington when needed. “We call them the Friends of Shear-Haven,” jokes Lloyd. “Whenever we have an event here, like a fundraiser for the local school, we ring those friends. And Heather’s family have been so helpful too. It’s definitely not our garden. We are just guardians, with the help of all these people.”