HIDDEN WONDERS

An extensive garden flourishes in a corner of the Far North.

The way to Gerry Milsom’s property is along a typical Far North country road. It’s gravel, bordered by wire-fenced farmland and has the obligatory one-lane bridge. You wouldn’t expect to come across a New Zealand Gardens Trust four-star garden here, but suddenly, on one side of the road, there’s a clue: many, many trees in autumn colours and tantalising glimpses of ponds, paths and glades of flowering shrubs. At the entrance to the property is a small, unassuming sign, Ngahuha Garden, named for the pā which once bordered the land.

Forty-five years ago there were few trees on this land. It was an uneconomic dairy farm, and when it came to the attention of Gerry and her late husband Peter Milsom, then living in Tauranga, they were attracted to what looked like good soil and a water supply.

“We weren’t looking for a farm,” Gerry says. “But back then there were no lifestyle blocks. People didn’t break up their land.”

Their choices were limited by what was available, and by the fact that they needed a block with a house on it, so they bought the farm.

“We weren’t even country people. We were novices from the city but we wanted a little bit of land.”

Gerry had caught the gardening bug when living on the east coast of the United States. There were allotments in the area and the seed was planted, literally and figuratively. But she and Peter hadn’t intended that their “little bit of land” would be 52ha, 6ha of that now in garden.

Creating a garden was always top of mind, but they wanted to also generate an income from the land. Kiwifruit was suggested but they were aware it would be labour intensive so they planted 250 avocado trees, plus persimmon and nashi. The nashi failed because the climate was too warm for them, but the avocados thrived and that block has since been leased out.

Planting an eclectic garden of natives and exotics was also a matter of trial and error, and Peter and Gerry collected many rare plants that create interest among the garden enthusiasts who visit Ngahuha. “In the early days we couldn’t buy all we wanted from a garden centre, so we often had to order what we wanted and grow it from seed. We grew pūriri from seed and Peter loved them. He was hoping for wood pigeons and there were some down in the bush but they were happy down there and they didn’t come up to us. But one very bad season there wasn’t enough food for them, and they started to come here.”

Native birds have contributed their own additions

to the garden, bringing the seeds of kahikatea, kawakawa and nikau. “But they didn’t plant them in the right places so we had to move them,” Gerry smiles.

The garden was intended as a retreat from a busy world. Peter worked as a GP and obstetrician, meaning the garden design and execution was mostly driven by Gerry in the early days. When Peter took up a surgical post at Whāngārei Hospital in the 1990s, it enabled more concentrated time for he and Gerry to work on the garden together, and that’s when it really started to take shape.

“He liked digging holes and shifting rocks, and because we had plenty of rocks on the property he built lots of rock walls and steps,” Gerry says. “I’ve always been the tree person and when we first came here I wanted autumn colour so we planted liquidambar, Japanese maple and nyssa. Then we found we could get wonderful autumn colour from deciduous conifers – swamp cypress, dawn redwoods and Canton water pine.”

Magnolias are a feature of the garden in late winter. Rhododendron maddenii and deciduous azaleas also do well, and Gerry says the camellias are foolproof.

A walk among Ngahuha’s thousands of trees reveals other treasures. Wooden bench seats overlook distant vistas of rolling lawn, meandering pathways, streams and pools. The focal point of one view reveals a sculpture created by the couple’s daughter Alex. The big lotus pond is a highlight of summer and in autumn the scent of ripe apricots from numerous plantings of the fragrant tea olive (Osmanthus fragrans f. aurantiacus) is a sensory delight.

“I don’t walk around the whole garden every day, but when I do the mowing I see everything,” Gerry says. “When I took over the mowing I upgraded the mower and I really enjoy it. But the nature of the Far North is that plants grow constantly so you don’t really get times when you can relax. I have the help of a gardener once a week. The garden would be a jungle without him.”

Since Peter’s death in 2015 Gerry has continued to develop the garden. “I just enjoy the process so I don’t really want it to be finished. It keeps evolving and sometimes our initial plantings developed into something far superior to what we originally envisaged. We always worked on the theory that if it doesn’t do well, shift it. And that became our mantra: we’ll try everything twice.”

‘I’ve always been the tree person and when we first came here I wanted autumn colour’

ABOVE Once a swampy paddock at the front of the property, this tranquil pond now helps showcase Gerry Milsom’s planting for autumn colour: “Standing under the autumn canopy of Taxodium distichum [bald cypress] you look across the pond to the Juglans nigra [black walnut] plantation in the distance,” she says.

TOP ROW Mother and Child was carved from Oamaru stone by Gerry and Peter’s daughter Alex 20 years ago at a sculpting workshop. This brugmansia came from Matapōuri Bay. Brazilian native yellow jacobinia (Justicia aurea). MIDDLE ROW Protea neriifolia ‘Pink Ice’. Lady with Dove by Jin Ling of Glenbervie Pottery. The luminous berries of Viburnum setigerum. BOTTOM ROW The fading bloom of kangaroo paw. Nikau palm seeds. One of three koru by potter Sue Willis.

BELOW Gerry with two of her three dogs, Sam and Daisy (Fred is absent): “They have always enjoyed accompanying me when I guide visitors around the garden and have recently even taken to leading some guests around the garden on their own.”

ABOVE Fred walking around the pond where gunnera and Louisiana irises grow at the water’s edge; a red alder shades the yellow jacobinia flowers, standard and weeping bald cypress are in the background and a red Chinese tupelo tree is on the right. RIGHT Peter built this bridge as an entrance to a grove of dawn redwood at right; the green foliage at left is a Canton water pine; in the background are a smooth-leaf elm and scarlet oak; on the right-hand bank are various Japanese maples and the pink-flowering Viburnum plicatum ‘Roseum’.

BELOW Fred runs through a plantation of black walnuts being raised for their quality furniture timber: “The nuts are much prized in America for baking, but as we already have more than enough from our English walnuts I no longer harvest them.”

TOP ROW Yellow jacobinia is a wonderful evergreen shrub. A hardy pink water lily has spread throughout the lotus pond. The seldom noticed bloom of the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera). MIDDLE ROW Japanese maple (Acer palmatum). The trunk of a 40-yearold silk floss tree near the house. Delicious cherimoya fruit. BOTTOM ROW Gerry with grandchildren Lila Margaret and Oscar Peter. Beautyberry (Callicarpa bodinieri). The Poor Knights lilies are not thriving in these large Vietnamese pots so will be shifted in spring.

LEFT The boggy area behind the house was excavated to create the lotus pond seen this year with plenty of leaves and no blossoms; since the grassy bank in the foreground is a natural amphitheatre Peter built a stage on the other side of the pond which has been used for several concerts including a fundraiser for the Kerikeri School of Music. ABOVE Beside the dry garden path is Aloe arborescens in bloom, Lomandra ‘White Sands’ and purple-flowered Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha); the plant on the left with white flower bracts is a dhobi tree (Mussaenda frondosa).