Mid-century Confidence /
Colour combinations in flower and foliage combine with perfection
A house professionally built in the 1960s often has a kind of conviction about it:
quality materials put together with a degree of assurance; plus hopefully an added
flair if there’s been an architect involved. Noela and her late husband Colin’s home
in Ilam has these qualities in spades, and is enclosed by a finely planted garden
with its own sense of composure.
AfterColin and Noela bought their property in 1974, architect John Scott still occasionally visited to show potential clients the house. The original build was in 1960, and John must have remained happy with the results. A grand front entrance above floating steps at the western end opens into a foyer, then a broad open-plan ‘terrace’ under the wedge-shaped roof, which extends the whole length of the house to the kitchen. Long carpeted steps on the right lead to bedrooms, and on the left drop down to living room spaces and the library. It ’s a simple and dramatic interior layout, ideal for entertaining large groups of people, and with many options to create smaller enclosed spaces using furniture and furnishings.
Noela tells me that the original garden was mostly planted in natives, and I imagine they would have been set out in bold groups to complement the new house. Some of the original trees such as Lophomyrtus are still there, grown tall and in proportion to the house, providing good conditions for shade-loving perennials and rhododendrons. It’s a generous section of just over 1200 square metres, a third of an acre; and having a well-planned mix of mature trees such as paperbark maples Acer griseum, dogwoods Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’ and shrubs on all four sides makes for a very sheltered environment.
The couple’s interest in gardening, plants and rhododendrons in particular seems to have been a slow burn over several decades. Colin’s family had been involved in education for three generations, and after a degree and master’s at Canterbury University, he graduated Teachers College in 1957. He and Noela were married in 1958, and travelled to Connecticut in 1963 for Colin to take up a Fulbright scholarship.
Back in Christchurch he lectured at Teachers College then served as an inspector of schools. Their interest in gardening and rhododendrons was beginning to stir, and they were founding members of the Canterbury Rhododendron Society in about 1970. The couple moved back to the United States in 1977, and Colin was conferred a degree of a
Doctor of Education by the University of Georgia in 1982. Noela remembers the beautiful mature trees around the city of Atlanta, and particularly the many different flowering dogwoods, Cornus species.
Settling back into Christchurch in the early 1980s,
Colin continued his career in education. A year in Japan in 1993 was spent setting up an exchange programme between Christchurch College of Education and Sonoda Women’s University. Principal of the College of Education until his retirement in 1996, he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit two years later for services to education.
Colin had set up horticulture programmes at several schools where he taught, and the couple’s circle of friends in Christchurch included many fine gardeners and plantspeople, including Ron and Mollie Coker, Barbara ‘Micky’ Kerr and Ron and Alison Ayling. Gardeners are typically generous with sharing plants, and ‘we were gradually drawn in’, says Noela. Their interest in rhododendrons and associated plants which appreciated similar growing conditions was properly launched, and they were pleased to have advice from a number of people, including Canterbury plantsman Alan Trott. Between them they were also members of Rotary Club of Christchurch, Canterbury Rose Society, Canterbury Flower Arrangement Society, Canterbury Horticultural Society and of the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, so their interest was certainly wide ranging!
Noela had become interested in floral art, and their time
in Japan had focused her attention on the practice of ikebana, in which she holds a teaching certificate. In the traditional form of this art, the purpose is less about creating decorative arrangements. In Japanese culture, arranging blossoms, stems and leaves is a way of combining symbolic and seasonal associations, and to learn to appreciate at close range more subtle aspects of the plants which can easily be overlooked.
In the garden, rhododendrons and other shrubs such as Daphne, the Calico bush Kalmia, tree peonies and lily of the valley Pieris were established in the light shade under the trees, surrounded by a rich underplanting of woodland perennials – trilliums, gentians, hostas, Fritillaria and bulbs. It’s not a low maintenance style of gardening, however if the conditions are right and a layer of mulch and leaves is built up, the layers of trees, shrubs and groundcover plants will soon form a kind of tapestry to compete with many common weeds. Another effect is that there’s a good bone structure which carries the garden through the winter months, and always something to see at any time of year.
As the plantings expanded and grew this effect became more evident, and in 2009 the garden won a ‘best all year round’ award. The couple were also involved with planting rhododendrons at Orton Bradley Park alongside the water race, from the very earliest days of the collection there in 1985.
Colin loved to travel over the Port Hills and around the head of Lyttelton Harbour for working bees and ongoing plantings. A rhododendron ‘Mt Loma Prieta’ in the park honours his input and commitment – an American cultivar with round trusses of apricot pink blooms and good foliage.
With her background in floral art, Noela has a fine eye for colour combinations in flower and foliage, and this attention to detail is obvious in the garden. Different shades of pink are not the easiest colour to place successfully together, and she achieves this with real confidence. During a recent visit I was impressed with another classic combination flowering together: soft greenish-yellow rhododendron ‘Lemon Lodge’ next to the large-flowered slate blue clematis ‘H. F. Young’.
Roses are a significant part of the garden for scent and picking – ‘French Lace’ is one of her favourites. Noela is also very conscious of the practicalities of gardening –
Noela has a fine eye for colour combinations in flower and foliage, and this attention to detail is obvious in the garden.
preparing soil well for planting, removing deadwood and old flowerheads, feeding (Nitrophoska blue, sheep pellets or blood and bone depending on the patient!) and applying her own compost from two large bins; ‘a good layer of mulch is so important’. She maintains the garden largely by herself, and also helps daughter Jackie with her own garden. Colin was less focused on the subtleties of colour and feeding, and more enthusiastic about the prospect of new plantings and the overall effect of different foliage and larger blocks of colour.
He also enjoyed propagation, and in 2015 I discovered that he and Noela were involved in supporting Jackie (they also have a son, Gregory, and four grandchildren) and her family at the Curator’s House Spanish Restaurant in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. A partnership with Friends of the Christchurch Botanic Gardens to maintain a demonstration garden beside the restaurant was about ‘encouraging people to grow their own fruit and vegetables by providing examples of plants and methods of growing them; and to provide the freshest herbs, colourful garnishes and and vegetables to the restaurant’, as Colin explained. They had stepped back a little by 2015, but Noela still prepared floral arrangements for the tables, and Colin propagated from seed many of the vegetables growing in the garden, including exotics such as orange spiked Kiwano, and Asian eggplants.
Noela tells me that the shape of their garden at home was laid out mostly in an organic fashion, gradually getting the shapes of the garden beds right and constructing pergolas to support climbing plants such as purple Wisteria, and to guide the eye along a lawn vista to a seat or special tree. They asked landscape architect Rob Watson about ideas for the main paved terrace on the north side of the house, and a series of white-painted stepped brick planters was the result. These have been planted with low conifers and round box Buxus topiary, which Noela keeps impeccably trimmed with hand-held electric shears. She also maintains box hedges around some of the beds, which enclose the mulch and leaf litter and make a crisp formal edge in the foreground of softer woodland plantings.
Considering that the garden is over 40 years old, it has a freshness about it because the plants are healthy, not allowed to become crowded, and are assessed regularly with a critical eye. The house and garden continue to complement each other in this new century – a great credit to Noela and Colin’s vison and enthusiasm.
The garden has a freshness about it because the plants are healthy, not allowed to become crowded, and are assessed regularly with a critical eye.