It took an artist’s eye to help shape this spectacular Canterbury garden.

An artist’s eye helped shape this beautifully rhythmical Canterbury garden

For an artist with a botany degree, creating a garden from scratch on a bare flat paddock presented both a rare opportunity and a challenge. “It was the biggest blank canvas I had ever worked on,” says Margie Waters. Margie and her husband, Owen, a now-retired pilot, moved from Auckland to North Canterbury in 2006 with their two teenage sons, lured by family in Christchurch and the opportunity to buy a block of land in Ohoka, just 25 minutes’ drive from the city.

“It was wonderful to have the opportunity to do exactly what we wanted without any restrictions, though sometimes I think we must have been mad,” says Margie, who enlisted the help of friend and landscape designer Sandi MacRae to draw up a garden plan before they built on the property.

‘Botany and art go hand in hand’

She so enjoyed the process that she went on to complete a Diploma of Landscape Design herself.

Fourteen years on, and Margie and Owen’s 1.6ha garden is a celebration of form, texture and colour. Essentially a triptych, the more classical central panel comprises a large formal lawn framed with wide borders while two very different side panels are “hinged” to each end of the house. The potager to the north-east harks to French impressionism, blending soft colours with loose forms, while the circular garden on the south-west is bold and expressionistic.

“Botany and art go hand in hand,” says Margie. “I love plants and I love design. That’s really what this garden is about.”

She describes it as a fairly formal, contemporary design with deliberate elements of asymmetry and a focus on texture and structure. “I didn’t want it to be just a formal garden. I wanted to push aspects of it in different directions at times.”

Margie and Sandi share a delight in using formal planting in an informal way. Crisply clipped buxus hedges weave along the edges of the 60m-long garden borders, adding a sense of playfulness and spontaneity. Behind them, sharp sculptural shapes sit alongside soft fuzzy forms with layers of ajuga, lavender, mondo and miscanthus grasses below.

Movement is an often-forgotten element in garden design, and Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ is a great performer. “It’s a stunning tall grass that provides a soft vertical element as well as movement in the garden,” says Margie, who has used greenery rather than flowers to soften the lines of hedging with minimal maintenance in mind. Only the roses require attention, and they are all white

THESE PAGES Form and texture are at the heart of Margie and Owen Waters’ mainly green garden, with unexpected juxtapositions adding interest; Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ grasses bring lightness and movement above clipped lonicera in an area sheltered by a hornbeam hedge; white lime chip inset with floating pavers and strips of mondo grass adds visual interest at ground level while bold flowers like pink peonies bring seasonal adornment.

THIS PAGE Buxus balls dot a lime-chip path flanked with four Malus ‘Red Top’ crab apple trees underplanted with Lavandula ‘Grosso’ and white creeping thyme; pyramid-shaped Malus ‘Ballerina Polka’ apples grow behind a Malus ‘Jack Humm’ crab apple at the far end with a feijoa hedge linking to the potager beyond. OPPOSITE (from top) An army of Thuja occidentalis ‘Smaragd’ occupies a lawn at the end of the driveway; black pots planted with square-topped buxus sit at the end of each mown strip while a double hedge of Portuguese laurel and Leyland cypress below the poplar shelter belt ensure the area is well-guarded from the wind. Margie and Owen Waters.

THESE PAGES (clockwise from top) “We get a few sarcastic comments about the winding hedges,” says Owen, who helped plan the waves using long hoses; buxus bullets sit in mondo grass in front, while ‘Iceberg’ roses are interspersed with Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ with square pillars of hornbeam, slim Thuja occidentalis ‘Pyramidalis’ and Magnolia grandiflora ‘DD Blanchard’ behind. Rusted steel sheep by Wire Art stand under pin oaks on the driveway lawn. Phoebe, a living version, contemplates a quince tree in the orchard which the large Wiltshire ewe shares with another 16-year-old former pet lamb; the pastoral scene is framed by blue catmint and a feijoa hedge in the neighbouring potager.