Italian style in Manawatū
Jetsetters longing for international travel could head to the Manawatu,¯ where Villa Candotti gives visitors a taste of formal Italian garden design.
Complete with formal hedges, ponds, statuary and symmetry.
“We’re not garden designers but we thought we’d give it a go. We worked out how long we were going to make the avenues and each section of the garden, and it started to take shape.”
Overseas travel might not be possible right now, but Peter and Jeanette Cranstoun only have to step outside their house to feel as if they are in Italy. Neat rows of cypress trees dot their landscape while long, graceful avenues criss-cross it. There is a formal parterre with tightly pruned hedging, its beds planted with red and white geraniums. There are ponds, fountains and statues at every turn, a loggia and even a small orangery.
Two acres or so of sheep paddocks in the Manawatu¯ have been transformed and incredibly, the couple have done pretty much all of the work themselves.
When they bought their lifestyle block near Colyton, this wasn’t the plan at all. They meant to put in a low maintenance garden with lots of trees and as little mowing as possible. But then Jeanette happened to go to the local library and brought home some beautiful books on Italian Renaissance-style gardens.
“When Peter saw them he said, ‘Wow, that’s amazing. I could do that’,” recalls Jeanette. “And then he did.”
Back in 2003 when they first bought the property, it was windswept bare land, so the first thing to be planted was a shelterbelt of gum trees. As they grew bigger, so did the idea of creating an Italian Renaissance garden.
Peter is half-Italian – his mother came from Trieste. Jeanette loves symmetry, and both are practical, creative types who enjoy a challenge. “We started off drawing a plan on graph paper,” says Peter. “We’re not garden designers but thought we’d give it a go. We worked out how long we were going to make the avenues and each section of the garden, and it started to take shape.”
Next came a lot of measuring and pacing as they marked out the land with string lines to work out where the cypress trees and hedges should be positioned. “We were wondering how straight our lines were but then a guy did an aerial photo and it looked really good,” says Jeanette.
For the low formal hedges of the parterre and the topiary, 1500 Buxus sempervirens plants were ordered.
Then 30 cypress trees arrived to be planted along the main avenue. That meant a lot of holes had to be dug into the mostly stony, clay ground, so the couple grabbed their spades and set to it.
While already keen gardeners, Peter and Jeanette had never attempted anything on this scale before and have learnt from mistakes they made along the way. One minor regret is the hedges of silver grey Teucrium fruticans they couldn’t resist planting. “We put them in because we’re impatient and knew it grows quick,” says Peter. “Now I realise that it’s all very well getting fast-growing things, but then they need to keep being trimmed. I have to do it every three weeks during the growing season.”
At first, the parterre was planted with Convolvulus
Two acres or so of sheep paddocks in the Manawatu¯ have been transformed and incredibly, the couple have done pretty much all of the work themselves.
For the low formal hedges of the parterre and the topiary, 1500 buxus plants were ordered.
cneorum but, with its metallic silver leaves and white flowers, it didn’t quite hit the mark so out it came and in went the geraniums to provide a more striking display.
That initial consignment of 30 cypresses also underperformed. The trees didn’t seem to be the totem shape the couple had envisaged, and also suffered quite badly from canker, constantly needing brown patches cut off. “We persevered for a couple of years but they looked terrible so in the end we pulled them out,” says Peter.
“I found some big cypress for sale in Auckland and we went up there with the trailer and got another 30. Once they were planted, they gave immediate effect, but Jeanette still had to mollycoddle them. She was always trimming off brown bits. Then they were infested with hundreds of bagworm moths.”
Thankfully, the trees are trouble-free these days.
“We don’t have to do anything now,” says Jeanette. “It’s like they’ve finally settled in and made this their home.”
While the garden may look lavish, DIY skills and some careful bargain hunting have meant getting maximum effect for minimum spend. The loggia was constructed entirely by the couple. They also made an outdoor fireplace and the orangery was a project that kept them busy through last year’s national lockdown.
Generally what tends to happen is that Jeanette is inspired by an idea she spots in a design magazine or on Pinterest. “And then Peter has to put them into practice,” she laughs.
In truth, while she might not quite have her husband’s strength, Jeanette is happy to wield a power tool and isn’t shy of climbing ladders. Hedge pruning, however, she mostly leaves to Peter, although she helps out a little with the hand shears.
Lots of trees have been planted, as originally intended, with an orchard of peach, pear, apple, cherry and nectarines, as well as several olives and some feijoas. However, there is also a lot of lawn – Peter spends about three hours a week on the ride-on keeping it mown – and flowers, including pink, white and red begonias, roses and lots of hydrangeas, wisteria and cosmos.
“A good 90 per cent of what we’ve planted you’d see in most big Italian gardens,” says Peter. “The gum trees are probably one of the few things you wouldn’t find.”
Acquiring the statuary has been a mission. With limited choice in their local shops, they have combed the country in search of interesting pieces and then headed off with the trailer to pick up urns and columns, fountains and statues, bringing them home.
The Cranstouns are still busy creating order from the wilderness with a new section of garden planned, and more urns and pots on the way to fill it. But any suggestion from their four children that they might extend the garden out even further into the front paddocks is met
The Cranstouns are still busy creating order from the wilderness with a new section of garden planned, and more urns and pots on the way to fill it.
Their daughters, Rebecca and Genevieve, were married in the garden within a couple of days of each other.
with a firm, “No, that’s not happening” from Jeanette.
It has been a labour of love so far. “We’re getting to a point where we don’t have to work so hard in the garden each week just to keep it maintained,” says Peter, who is a former insurance broker and now a handyman. “It would be amazing to know how many hours we’ve spent creating it.”
Perhaps the most intense period was when they were preparing for the weddings. Their daughters, Rebecca and Genevieve, were married in the garden within a couple of days of each other. That made things convenient for family and friends travelling from Australia, but it meant a lot of pressure for Peter and Jeanette. “We were physical wrecks by the time they got married,” recalls Peter.
Originally, this garden was something they created for themselves and their family. But once they had recovered from those weddings, the couple began to think others might like to visit. “We’d never been on any garden tours ourselves,” explains Jeanette. “So we wondered if ours would be good enough and weren’t sure it was something that people would want to come and see.”
Now they are enjoying opening up to garden groups and enthusiasts. On hot summer days, Jeanette serves visitors cold drinks in the loggia where they can look at the views through the archways. There are plans to open a small shop selling handicrafts and homewares they have made.
But Jeanette and Peter most enjoy the peaceful times when they have the place to themselves, particularly first thing in the morning. “And also late evening with the lovely light and the birds fluttering round the trees,” says Peter. “When we first came here there wasn’t any birdlife at all. Now we’ve got so many hedges. There are always birds coming and going from the tall Pittosporum
crassifolium hedges. And the two huge cypress trees in the back garden are like sparrow and starling hotels.”
Water always used to be a problem here, with summers tending to be dry, hot and windy. So a bore was put in and now an irrigation system is making a huge difference to the health of the garden.
“The ornamental grapes behind our loggia were looking really poorly,” says Jeanette. “We thought it was the wind damaging the leaves but, once we started regular watering, the leaves started getting a really nice lush look to them. The hydrangeas love water too. Even the wisteria was getting stressed without it, and dropping leaves.”
Neither Peter nor Jeanette has ever visited any real-life versions of the classic Italian garden they have replicated. Sadly a hoped-for trip to Italy with Peter’s late mother never happened because she grew too frail to travel.
But their vision, dedication and work means they can continue to enjoy a taste of Italy right on their doorstep whenever they want. “We’re perfectionists when it comes to our garden,” admits Peter. “We want it to look really good for ourselves. That was the driving force and that’s what keeps us going.” How to visit: Email villacandotti@gmail.com or contact the Cranstouns via the Villa Candotti Facebook page.