A sea of green

Rosa Davison has transformed a barren landscape into a stunning green sanctuary at the edge of the Pacific

‘We get on quite well, Mother Nature and I,” says Rosa Davison from the top of Paripuma, a native haven at the very edge of Marlborough’s east coast. Like many good relationships, this one takes compromise, and over the past 16 years Rosa has learned to concede when nature is adamant, and push back when she is not.

When Rosa, husband Michael and their three teenagers arrived in 1999, this was an exposed, arid landscape dappled with rabbit holes. “It was awesome, but it was very windy and very barren.”

The land ran down to a windswept beach and slate-coloured sea, with blue North Island hills in one direction and the sheer cliffs of Marlborough’s White Bluffs in another. They named their property using the Maori words for bluff (pari) and off-white (puma), then built a home that echoes that natural phenomenon.

Its tall white walls are a nod to the area’s chalky cliffs, while its strength and central courtyard respect the elements they are exposed to. The home has a French influence but New Zealand aesthetic, blurring the lines in between.

Blurred lines are a recurring theme at Paripuma, where the 4ha garden marries formal European design with New Zealand natives, using borders of ngaio and cabbage trees, squares of griselinia, groves of nikau and carpets of rengarenga. >

“I love the formal gardens of Europe, and I wanted to create one with New Zealand plants,” says Rosa, diminutive amid the power of this garden and the landscapes beyond. “I can never understand why other people don’t want to do that. Eighty per cent of the native plants here aren’t found anywhere else in the world, and botanists come and think, ‘Wow, what are these?’ Yet we go and import plants from the northern hemisphere.”

The creation of the garden started at its outer edge, with Rosa chipping into the stony soils along the beach. Here she allowed ngaio, which thrive along Marlborough’s Awatere coastline, to form their natural woolly shape.

Then she began a wide avenue of lawn back to the house, refining lines as the garden drew away from the beach. Thousands of plants were added and now the ruffled edges at one boundary blend into sharp borders and symmetrical plantings at the other.

Even the ngaio change along the way, morphing from their natural state to more structured pieces, pruned to a central trunk and ball of green as they march up the lawn. >

In the centre of the avenue Rosa composed a circular garden around a rusted whale pot, in which her mother once grew flowers. Now it’s the perfect centrepiece for a ring of Poor Knights lilies surrounded by matted Coprosma acerosa ‘Hawera’.

Flame red lilies emerge from the foliage in spring, when a Nelmac Garden Marlborough tour arrives at the garden. “People say to me, ‘Oh my goodness, you’re dreadfully clever growing this,’ but all they want is terrible soil, no rain and lots of wind,” says Rosa, while admitting that few people can get the lilies to f lower. “It’s really amazing, but it’s not in the least bit clever.”

The red is even more striking for being so unusual here, amid 100 different shades of green, from the verdant miniature toetoe to the blue tones of the oioi coming up beside her pond. “Green is my favourite colour and I love those textural differences.”

Rosa enjoys sharing her beautiful garden with tour groups, and with guests of the bed and breakfast she and Michael run from Paripuma (paripuma.com).

They also occasionally host weddings in the garden, and she delights in the reactions of visitors who follow one of the avenue’s intriguing side paths. “I want people to think ‘Where are we going?’ and get to the end and get a bit of a shock.” There’s a pohutukawa-lined lane with a red seat at its end, for example, and a sheltered glade of tall nikau with a mossy path at their feet.

That lush green mossy carpet was not contrived but just arrived, says Rosa with delight. “It seems to take traffic and it’s the most extraordinary thing.” It’s an example of her very easy relationship with nature, because when a new plant grows in a corner of the garden, she generally decides it’s designed to thrive there and should stay. >

“I LOVE THE FORMAL GARDENS OF EUROPE, AND I WANTED TO CREATE ONE WITH NEW ZEALAND PLANTS”

“I do like trying to find different things, but you can have a common plant doing well, and it looks beautiful, or the rarest plant in the world that’s not thriving, and it may as well not be there.” That said, Paripuma has plenty of unusual species Rosa has coaxed into surviving, including a small mountain cabbage tree currently guarded against rabbits, although she’s inclined to let the furry invaders stay too.

For the plants, visitors and animals that live here, Paripuma is a haven, she says. “We feel very privileged to be here, and happy that we can share our sanctuary.”

THIS PAGE (from top) The house has oak doors made from trees planted by Michael’s greatgrandfather; when they were blown over 40 years ago, the couple held onto the wood, hoping it would one day find a place. An indigenous play on a European theme, including the griselinia Rosa has pruned into tree form, with 1.5m gnarled trunks carrying pompoms of glossy green.OPPOSITE Rosa has breakfast in the vegetable garden every morning, sipping kefir (a fermented milky drink) in “a moment of peace”; the vegetable beds, along with a nearby flower and swan plant garden, are designed to appeal to bees and butterflies.

THIS PAGE (from top) Ngaio trees are the foundation planting of Paripuma, because they thrive in the arid soil and salty wind along the coast. The pond is home to a native grey duck Rosa rescued from a Blenheim road when it was a duckling, and cared for until it was self-sufficient – this year it has returned with its own ducklings; the pond is also home to hundreds of very welcome frogs.OPPOSITE The garden takes its name from the startling white cliffs nearby.