Coast meets country on Waiheke
All the warmth and welcome of a country garden, on a slice of coastal paradise in the Hauraki Gulf.
One couple transforms a neglected bach plot into a garden festival gem.
“There was just a wee old bach here with some fruit trees and the A-frame filled with junk… We took out truckloads of old trees, water tanks and rubbish.”
Some gardens have a singular feature that immediately catches the eye, an element that draws the whole composition together beautifully and effectively. In the case of Simon and Mary Wright’s Waiheke Island property, it’s an archway, an elegant, well-proportioned structure of black-painted steel pipe festooned with climbers that stretches the length of the front garden. When the couple opened their garden for last year’s Waiheke Garden Festival, the archway had many visitors green with envy, and pondering whether a similar structure could fit into their gardens.
The Wright’s archway is about 30m long and runs above a straight path connecting the garden entrance to the house. Roses – some new like the fragrant ‘Birthday Present’; some ancient with gnarled trunks at least 30cm wide – grow up the support posts and over the arch along with wisteria, snail vine and other flowering climbers.
“The garden needed some backbone. We had always wanted an archway so we made it happen,” says Simon, who designed it himself with help from Waiheke-based landscape designer Lyndell Shannon. “No-one on the island could curve the galvanised steel pipe so I asked an engineer friend in town to do the bendy bit. Lyndell came up with most of the plant choices, things I would never have picked. Mary loved the idea of wisteria but Lyndell suggested adding roses and the other climbers to add interest when the wisteria is not flowering.
“The plants are spaced so they create window-like openings that allow you to look through to the garden. The beauty of an arch is that plants are at eye level and you can appreciate the flowers and the perfume more. It becomes quite intimate.”
They are big on fragrance in this garden. It starts with tropically perfumed star jasmine planted on both sides of the entry path, along the archway through to the main entrance of the house surrounded by mandevilla, daphne, stephanotis, boronia and more roses. “The idea was to have scent all around as you come in,” adds Simon.
He and Mary bought their Waiheke property back in 2011. Simon had spent 47 years practising as a vet on Auckland’s North Shore and they were feeling it was time to move on. “We had visited the island for decades and came over for the sculpture trail that year. We realised this could be a good place to move to. Within six weeks, we had sold the house, seen this one, bought it and moved in,” says Mary. “There was just a wee old bach here with some fruit trees, and the A-frame filled with junk. Behind the derelict shed was a wilderness. We took out truckloads of old trees, water tanks and rubbish.”
Now the old bach is a contemporary, black-clad house that opens to Shelly Beach on its seaward side, with the delightful cottage garden cum potager complete with central arch on its sheltered side. The A-frame at the entrance to the garden is painted black too and is now used for guest accommodation. The shed has been turned into a kitchen for Mary’s catering business, Food with Flair. She started the business when they moved to the island and her skill as a cake maker is now widely admired, with her cakes in constant demand.
“Mary has always been a wonderful baker. I am the dish washer and taster,” jokes Simon.
“The garden needed some backbone,” Simon Wright says. “We had always wanted an archway, so we made it happen.”
Although it has a clearly defined structure with its strong central axis and archway, the garden also has an informal quality that suits its island environment,
In front of the kitchen is a small goldfish pond, surrounded by a symphony of old-fashioned pink, white and mauve flowers – larkspurs, wallflowers, stock, bearded iris and lavender. There are also herbs of every description, low and creeping types around the pond and taller fennel, bay trees and rosemary against the walls of the building.
Although it has a clearly defined structure with its strong central axis and archway, the garden also has an informal quality that suits its island environment. “We wanted it a little wild but also organised,” Mary explains. “Simon did virtually all the layout and built the structures, the pond, the archway – all the infrastructure apart from the big retaining walls. Our four sons used to come over occasionally to help and two of them still do.”
Fruit trees are planted either side of the central path. On the eastern side is a small lawn and a series of raised vege beds and berry houses built of recycled materials. “It’s a small space and we didn’t want it to feel too crowded. The lawn helps break it up,” points out Simon.
For a small garden, the amount of edible plants thriving here is impressive. As well as the strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, there are citrus, nectarines, persimmon, figs, pomegranate, passionfruit, a grape vine, feijoa and other edibles. An array of bee-attracting flowering annuals and perennials such as alyssum, sweet peas and lavatera surrounds the edible plants.
Even subtropical fruit trees thrive here, with two healthy tamarillo trees and a banana plant tucked into a sheltered corner away from the coastal breezes. “We eat bananas all
“Simon did virtually all the layout and built the structures, the pond, the archway – all the infrastructure apart from the big retaining walls.”
the time,” he says, “they love it there. We just cut down the stems after taking the fruit and use it as mulch. The plant then puts up another stem that flowers and fruits. It regenerates itself, so easy.”
He credits the success of this highly productive garden to plenty of compost, proudly showing us the three large bins used to make his continuous hot compost, the temperature of which he measures daily. Today, it’s 66°C.
“It starts in the house with the vege bucket, potato water and cold tea which we use to soak paper towels, egg cartons and other paper waste. They all go into the compost, everything including garden weeds because the heat kills the seeds. I make three to four cubic metres a year. This what drives the garden. It enriches the soil.”
Simon also gives the garden copious amounts of liquid feed. Alongside the compost area are several large drums he uses for making compost tea and a rich brown liquid fertiliser made from comfrey, seaweed and horse poo.
On the seaward side of the house, a large deck with a spa tucked into one corner steps down to a grassy reserve alongside picturesque Shelly Beach. Here, the garden is more naturalistic in design, in harmony with the relaxed style of coastal gardens all around the island.
Lyndell Shannon suggested plants that had the ability
to cope with coastal conditions, including graceful snow tussock ( Chionochloa flavicans), flaxes and Coprosma repens ‘Poor Knights’. These are planted in large informal drifts around the base of several olive trees that provide a light screen for the deck without being too dominant. The white carpet rose growing here was given to Mary by her sister; one of many plants in the garden gifted by family, friends and members of the local garden club of which Simon is a proud member (currently the only male).
To the side of the house beneath two k¯owhai trees, a lovely hammock is surrounded by hydrangea, acorus, grasses and acanthus.
Does Simon not know acanthus is considered a weed, we have to ask. “Yes… but they are quite spectacular. You just have to keep them under control.”
The couple are thrilled to soon be working again with Lyndell, who has become a friend. The landscape designer will be helping them plan a new extension to the edible gardens at local primary school Te Huruhi.
Every Tuesday, the couple run the Garden to Table programme at the school – Simon in the garden and Mary in the kitchen. “We teach that gardening should be both productive and beautiful,” he says. “Vege gardens can look a bit sad at certain times. But if you make it lovely you will always want to be out there. I teach the children all you need to grow food, from seed-raising to composting.
“The volunteers are key to the success of the programme. They’ve become an important part of our lives. Getting kids eating fresh veges and fruits is so important. And so rewarding. This week, Mary made cheesy green balls with yoghurt dip, warm potato salad and afghan biscuits. The kids loved it.”
Simon and Mary work on the recipes for the Garden to Table sessions together each week. She loves seeing the change in the children as they move through the programme. “Most of the kids start to develop a desire to eat better. They love being in the kitchen and while they tend towards the desserts each time, they are also great with fritters and salads. I always use herbs when we cook and the kids enjoy that. So many of them had never even seen herbs before.”
As well as the new $10,000 garden extension at Te Hurihi, the couple are also helping to set up the Garden to Table programme at the island’s other primary school, Waiheke Primary. And while that sounds more than busy to most of us, Simon has just become a wedding celebrant and they are thinking of possibly hosting weddings in the garden. “We love to share our garden with people. We feel strongly that we don’t own it, we are just the guardians, looking after it while we live here.”
It’s a generous attitude from a generous couple, happy to share their skills and time with the community of their island home. ✤
How to visit: Simon and Mary enjoy chatting with garden visitors, who are asked to make a donation to help fund the Garden to Table programme at the school where the couple volunteer. Email simonwrightvet@hotmail.com.