Dreaming Spires
The oldest walnut trees at Mike and Georgie’s
home are giants. Planted in the mid-1850s,
their massive trunks rival the 50-metre-tall
Lombardy poplars reaching even higher
into the sky next to the couple’s beautiful
streamside garden in the Takamatua Valley,
just over the hill from Akaroa.
MIKE AND GEORGIE BOUGHT THIS EIGHT-HECTARE
property Kingstons in 1995, moving a year later from Heads Farm above the entrance to Akaroa Harbour. Transplants from the farm’s garden that autumn included mature camellias, rhododendrons and thousands of flowering bulbs carried in fish crates: favourite Narcissus daffodils, scented jonquils ‘Soleil d’or’ and Leucojum snowflakes. The Heads farmhouse (their son and daughter-in-law now own the farm) sits at around 300 metres altitude, and the access road reaches 600 metres; the garden was smaller and more exposed than their lush plantings at Takamatua.
After 27 years in residence at the bay, they’ve learnt a thing or two about the local environment. The property is a mostly flat terrace next to Takamatua Stream, backed with hillside to the northeast and some natural springs; one supplies the house. There’s well-drained fertile topsoil over shingle on the flats, with underlying clay in a few spots. The stream typically flows about one and a half metres below the garden along a rocky bed (there’s a healthy population of eels), but in flood it can sweep through the woodland plantings nearby. Stone-filled wire gabions help to stabilise the bank and shield the garden.
There was an interesting mix of trees (many are now protected) when they arrived, but no established garden. The long-standing previous owner Stan Kingston was a returned serviceman; Georgie understands that his wife grew excellent roses here. The poplars and walnuts dominated because of their size but there were also hollies, kōwhai, tōtara and kahikatea on the hill slopes, and nearer the house horse chestnuts, sycamores, a crabapple (probably ‘Golden Hornet’), ash Fraxinus, limes Tilia over 40 metres tall, and a wonderful old plant of Rhododendron ‘Sir Robert Peel’ with cerise-pink flowers, named for the British Prime Minister and widely planted around Aotearoa New Zealand during the 19th century. A heritage pear tree at least 90 years old marked the site of an orchard: its white spring blossom is beautiful but unfortunately the scent is just the opposite; the pay-off is reliable early cropping.
Georgie and Mike’s farmhouse at the top of the driveway was the gatehouse or lodge of what was once a bigger estate, with a grand house standing in what are now their top paddocks. Their comfortable home is both well used and well saved, with a curiously Regency feel in parts. Jane Austen would likely find some rooms not unfamiliar, and full of interest along with a gentle eccentricity: plates, pictures and carved dining chairs, books and papers in progress, a compact but weighty brass owl (one of Mike’s recent finds), indoor plants, and a fully rigged model yacht backlit by late afternoon sun in the dining room window – all with the jewel colours of the garden spread out as a backdrop through the glass.
In hindsight Georgie feels they probably overplanted along the stream, because in the early years there was a real lack of shelter and privacy. Protection was badly needed from northwest gales (and also southerlies) which still sweep across Akaroa Harbour and funnel up into the valley, and the property was overlooked by houses along the valley road.
Strong northwesters occasionally cause damage but the house and garden is now much more sheltered, and something of a frost pocket apparently as a consequence.
There’s a kind of English sensibility at play with their plantings; perhaps not surprising as Georgie and Mike both grew up in the United Kingdom, with extensive early travels. Flowering shrubs such as yellow Forsythia have links to childhood as we’ll see, and many of the ornamental trees also have practical purposes: Tulip trees Liriodendron, Scarlet oaks, a form of maple Acer negundo with pink flower tassels, Amelanchier and Paulownia in the top paddocks offer summer shade for the sheep, and similarly the handkerchief tree Davidia and dogwood Cornus controversa in the yards. Plantings stretch the imagination: fruiting apples ‘Gravenstein’ and ‘Cox’s Orange’ are planted out on the hill slopes so their pink and white blossom can be enjoyed against blue sky, and a vast plant of climbing rose ‘Mme. Alfred Carrière’ clambers over the implement storage shed. This was originally a piggery, connected to partly buried concrete channels still visible crossing the lower garden; then a woolshed when Mr Kingston bought more land for sheep. He later sold the property in smaller parcels after his retirement. Takamatua was originally named German Bay after the original families who settled there in 1840, but in 1916 nearby residents lobbied for a name change as a reaction to the Great War; what we now call Belgian biscuits and the House of Windsor are other examples from the time!
Georgie’s father spent time in West Africa when she
There’s a kind of English sensibility at play with their plantings; perhaps not surprising as Georgie and Mike both grew up in the United Kingdom, with extensive early travels.
was a young girl, and she remembers the clear bright yellow of Forsythia flowering all through the suburbs between London Airport and Victoria Station during their travels home. The family also lived in Berlin from 1946–48, in the only intact house along one side of a street. We talked about how devastated the city must have appeared, from bombing and street battles but also with most of the pre-war trees once thriving in parks and elegant boulevards – such as the 250-year-old limes along Unter den Linden: literally ‘under the linden trees’ – long since cut down for firewood by desperate residents. Happily these particular limes were replanted in the 1950s when the boulevard was part of communist East Berlin.
Georgie and Mike have always planted what pleases them, when and where they like rather than to a formal site plan, so this is in many ways a spontaneous ‘wild’ garden – spreading organically around the house and along the stream, and powered by hard work, confident horticultural practice and horse manure. As Georgie said prior to my visit, ‘the garden will just be what it is … and I always try to have something flowering’. Ongoing planting is intended to achieve a sequence of flowers, fruit and colourful leaves throughout each season, and is the happy result of Georgie and Mike’s shared passion for the garden plus their individual pursuits.
Both are keen on snowdrops Galanthus, daffodils and many other bulbs – annual deadheading prevents the bulb’s energy being spent on seed formation. Mike loves dogwoods Cornus, and also has a fine collection of deciduous magnolias (some were from Halkett Nursery’s clearing sale) including New Zealand cultivars ‘Iolanthe’ and wine-pink ‘Genie’ which flowers from mid-September in the sheepyards. The couple both like flowering cherries, including P. x hillieri ‘Spire’ grafted on to P. serrula with shining red bark along the driveway, white ‘Mt Fuji’, and Prunus x yedoensis with almond-scented single flowers. This Yoshino cherry blooms en masse along Harper Avenue in Ōtautahi Christchurch,
and I’ve learnt that it’s a resource for nectar-feeding birds – we watched a fat and glossy tūī visiting the cherry while we explored the garden. Tūī are well-established around Akaroa, and Georgie is fond of kererū pigeons too despite them eating all her ripe apricots; pūkekos are less of a favourite! There’s also a successful wildlife corridor of mainly New Zealand natives beside the top paddock.
Autumn colour, attractive bark and colourful fruit are all here: Nyssa sylvatica, Claret ash, amelanchiers, Persian Ironwood Parrotia persica, Liquidambar, Betula utilis var. jacquemontii, hawthorns, plus a crabapple avenue leading to a small vineyard. Nearly 200 Pinot noir and Chardonnay vines were planted in 1998, however all but 12 have been gradually replaced by fruit and nut trees. These do triple duty providing shade, shelter and edibles: ‘Moorpark’ apricots, ‘Blackboy’ peaches, ‘Peasgood Nonsuch’ apples, medlars, plums, sweet chestnuts over drifts of daffodils and white bluebells near the driveway, quinces, figs and a hard-shelled almond.
The most intensively gardened areas are along the stream and around the house. Here are smaller ornamental trees, flowering shrubs, choice bulbs and perennials, and fences have been moved occasionally to accommodate them. Big camellias and rhododendrons such as ‘Van Dec’ transplanted from Heads Farm in 1996 were established along the stream, and the camellias were later limbed up and joined by a canopy of magnolias, maples and birches. This sheltered woodland environment is ideal for big-leafed rhododendrons including tree-sized R. macabeanum and frost-tender species R. maddenii, planted in the early 2000s. Scented michelias, Drimys winteri, native mistletoe, ornamental quince Chaenomeles ‘Green Ice’, shrub roses and once-flowered rambling roses grow around the sunny fringes of the woodland, plus a host of Georgie’s favourite hellebores and delicate white narcissi. Everything has its provenance, whether as gifts or cuttings from friends, nurseries or other gardens all around Canterbury – she and Mike together have a true ‘memory palace’ of people, times and places. Georgie’s recent enthusiasm for ornamental grasses was sparked by Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf, and 1.8-metre Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ has appeared by Mike’s pond (there are waterlilies of course) amongst Japanese iris and plumes of Elegia.
The house is enclosed by a network of brick pathways and garden beds crammed with treasures, many scented: lilies, perennials, roses, and quirky sculptures peering out from the leaves – sunny variegated foliage predominates under the kitchen window. Mildew-prone ‘Pat Austin’ roses (‘a sulky b-tch’ in Georgie’s judgement) planted around a huge rock in the lawn have been replaced with ‘Diamond Jubilee’ – a hybrid tea with a fine track record and real class: much like the garden itself, and likewise an inspiration.
The house is enclosed by a network of brick pathways and garden beds crammed with treasures, many scented: lilies, perennials, roses, and quirky sculptures peering out from the leaves.