North Island
A wonderful Waikato garden where topiary sets the tone
The garden really began to take shape when they discovered topiary. “We like formal planting and clean, sharp lines. I also love the wow factor topiary gives”
With its neatly trimmed topiary, groomed lawns and pristine flower beds, you could be forgiven for imagining that a team of gardeners were at work maintaining Pat and Denise Donnelly’s large Waikato garden. But no.
“It’s just Pat and I – team Donnelly,” says Denise. “And it’s nowhere near as labour intensive as it looks.”
She insists that even the topiary trees, which she tackles with hand-held hedge trimmers while Pat cleans up behind her, are relatively low-maintenance. “It takes longer to think about doing it than it does to actually do it.”
After 40 years of farming sheep and dairy, and Denise working as a dental therapist, the Donnellys retired to the rural settlement of Tamahere in 2009, with the idea of creating a beautiful garden very much in the forefront of their minds. They bought a newly built house and three-and-a-half hectares of bare land, and tried to decide how to begin transforming it. “We have a long road frontage and were very exposed, so we were aware of the need to plant for privacy,” says Denise.
Nicky Samuel of Te Awamutu’s Gorgeous Gardens designed the initial structure and devised a planting plan. On her advice, they fenced off more than half a hectare of paddock as garden, built a pergola and chose where the hedges and garden beds would be laid. Three frenzied months of planting followed. In went corokia hedges – ‘Geentys Green’ and ‘Frosted Chocolate’, to provide an attractive contrast – silver birch trees, liquidambars, Gleditsia ‘Ruby Lace’, circular rose beds, lots of star jasmine and a griselinia hedge around the fence line to create privacy.
“It was hard work,” says Denise. “Pat dug the holes and I did the planting, then we put on 80 cubic metres of mulch with a wheelbarrow and bucket.”
In the early years, their biggest problem was rabbits eating the shrubs – they were having an ongoing picnic and wiped out several plants. Finally, Pat put a rabbitproof fence around the whole garden. “Now we see the rabbits playing outside it,” says Denise.
The garden really began to take shape when the couple discovered topiary. Having seen some elsewhere, they were put in touch with Graeme Burton of Rukuhia Homestead Landscaping, and with his help and expertise introduced some topiary trees to their own plot.
“We like formal planting and clean, sharp lines – and the topiary fits with that. I also love the wow factor they give to the garden,” says Denise, who’s in charge of all the trimming. “The big topiaries were already shaped when we got them. Graeme taught me to maintain them and I’ve just carried on.”
Perhaps the most impressive topiary trees are the group the couple calls ‘the five sisters’, fern pines ( Podocarpus gracilior) clipped into large cloud-head shapes, which are like living sculptures. Several of