A fairy tale French style garden is a dream come true.

Good DIY skills and some hardcore research combine to create a fairy tale French formal garden

It’s entirely possible to believe that dreams can come true when you’re standing outside the beguiling garden that Liza and Scotty MacBeth have created in an old part of Remuera, Auckland. Peer through decorative wrought-iron gates to the stylish old house beyond, and there’s enough soft, romantic planting to tempt you to explore. On a hot spring day, the air is thick with the scents of roses, Christmas lilies, lavender and star jasmine.

The garden might look like a perfect match for its venerable cottage – the original part of the house formerly known as Laverstoke is said to be the first one built in the street circa 1900 – but it wasn’t always like this. Until they started work a couple of years ago, the MacBeths’ garden existed only in Liza’s bulging files and scrapbooks.

A dedicated creative, Liza always has a project on the go, either sewing or painting or, during this past summer holidays, revamping a vintage caravan at their little Kiwi bach in Mangawhai.

“I’m really passionate about design,” she says. With a diploma in interior design, she says “interiors

flow to the outside”. And they went to remarkable lengths to nail the style of garden they wanted here.

Scotty has his own building consultancy company and in 2011 they took a sabbatical to Britain for six months. This was a chance to do their horticultural research up close. They both love gardens, Liza specially, “but I have the will, not the knowledge”.

Once in London they bought a car, a tent and passes to the National Trust and immersed themselves in the oldest and most distinguished gardens in the UK, exploring from Cornwall to the far north of Scotland.

Arriving at a place where they could pitch their tent, they studied the map to see how many trust properties they could visit in the area. Sometimes they managed four a day, all the while taking photographs. “We had a photo competition going,” says Liza, each vying for photo of the day.

“What’s fascinating, when you come from New Zealand, is the vast number of castles still in private ownership. By normal standards ours is a large house, but not if you compare it to the UK.”

Their favourite garden was not one of the big names you’d recognise: it’s Cotehele, a Tudor house and garden with medieval roots, on the Tamar River in Cornwall. The house probably dates from 1300 so naturally the extensive grounds are a timeline of garden styles, including woodlands, rambling valley vistas, a working mill, an Italian terrace and swathes of soft lavender blowing in the wind, says Liza. “It was very romantic.”

It was a great influence on the style they finally settled on for their own place: “I wanted to create a French formal garden.”

Think decorative hedges surrounding flower-filled beds in a parterre, charming views glimpsed along ordered pathways, symmetrical planting, green as the dominant colour and sculptures (topiary or something antique) used as focal points. Lawns and hedges are always immaculately green and clipped. The structure is key to keeping everything neat, even during seasonal downshifts. A plan is essential, and Liza drew up her own. They brought in Luijten Landscaping to turn her vision into reality because the whole 896sqm property needed an overhaul.

Down the side the swimming pool was revamped, the lawn relaid, and at the front, retaining walls and a long wide path were built to frame the parterre. What could be saved was put to one side for creative reuse, such as the original post lantern near the front gates. When unlovely trees were removed a swing found a new home on the London plane tree on the verge. Now kids pause for a swing on the way home from school, their parents chatting to the couple over the fence.

Liza’s favourite spot is a seat by the front door, where she can take in a wide view of the front and side gardens. A black garden seat is one she restored; two urns were cracked and distressed, but Liza put them back together and found them a perch. “I don’t want everything new,” she says.

She loves junk shops, and loaded skips, taking great pride in curing most things with TLC and a glue gun. An unpromising passage down the least visible side of the house is where an old red rose was left to hibernate during the renovations. Now the dry ground is covered with a lively patchwork of fake turf offcuts recycled from a local Playcentre revamp. The languishing rose has been replanted out front, sparking Liza’s need to know more about roses so she’s just joined the Auckland Rose Society.

There are lowlights too. The Japanese anemones have outlived their welcome, turning thuggish and invasive. “That’s part of the learning curve,” says Liza. “At some point I’ll pull them out and start again.” And the lawn is a work in progress.

Scotty jokingly calls his wife Lady MacBeth but she doesn’t mind his mild ribbing. “I feel like a bit of a lady with a garden like this.”

THESE PAGES Liza and Scotty MacBeth designed this Remuera, Auckland garden to provide an elegant, formal entrance to their venerable villa: “Above all else we wanted to create a timeless, classical garden that gives a feeling of grandeur as you approach the front door,” says Liza.

THESE PAGES (from left) Urns are a key element of French garden design and this one from Haddonstone takes pride of place near the front door; it bears a geranium ‘Rozanne’, underplanted in the square bed with tone-on-tone Liriope muscari ‘Samantha’. Looking up to the street entrance from the house; the tiered garden the MacBeths established to replace a sloping lawn shows their love of the French formal style with garden rooms using symmetrical structure, formality of planting and a sense of intimacy; the original post lantern has been carefully restored; a belt of standard, naturally mop-top maples, Acer platanoides ‘Globosum’, cinches the garden’s widest point.

THESE PAGES (from left) Miniature standard buxus in vintage white planters at left were discarded by neighbours when Liza found and revived them – opposite them is a pair of artichoke carvings that once featured on the verandah; Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ shrubs – on the verge of flowering – surround one of a pair of 30-year-old buxus cones. Liza, Scotty, six-year-old daughter Abigail and Poppy the Japanese spitz.

THESE PAGES Clipped box hedges form the backbone of the garden and the parterre; white and green predominate, with a fragrant pillow of star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) covering the back wall of the garage and white Flower Carpet roses at its feet; the black and white table settings were painted by Liza.

THIS PAGE (from top) The garden vista from Liza’s favourite spot. Looking down from the top lawn across the pool to the main formal lawn, which is being fed, cosseted and watered in the pursuit of perfection. OPPOSITE Looking up to the London plane tree that towers over the street verge (with a glimpse of the swing).