Whimsy and colour flow through this Taranaki garden.
Colour and fun are the cornerstones of this Taranaki garden
Her surname refers to a shaved expanse of sameness, however Claire Lawn’s Taranaki garden is anything but bland. Colour bursts out of garden beds; it’s lathered on walls and outdoor furniture and evident in her clothes and red hair.
The former kindergarten teacher paints in her spare time and the garden reflects her playfulness, colour skill and sense of wonder.
Claire and her late partner Bill Hartigan bought the property in the 1980s. While it had good shelter belts of mature trees, it was overgrown and renovations had stalled which meant, for example, that a pile of rubble lay where it had been dumped.
The couple enlisted help from local landscaper designer Chris Paul of Plan-It Earth who “gave us the lines and the design element that as an amateur you can’t think of in the same scale,” remembers Claire. She and Bill had little
gardening experience so learned as they planted.
The pile of rubble, which covered a drain, metamorphosed into circular ivy hedging – like a giant green doughnut laid on the ground. Claire took cuttings from one of the kindies she taught at and planted them one by one. “The more you can get for free, the better really.”
And why a circle? “The pile of building mix was there and I got a bobcat and made a circle myself. Chris had designed a lawn but Bill said, ‘I’m not mowing lawns like that’ so we came up with this low maintenance idea.”
Inside the small circle, moss-covered rocks form a koru pattern.
Nearby is Claire’s answer to a pond – a series of mirror tiles that reflect the leafy surroundings. “I would have liked a pond but this is much easier to maintain.”
Then there is a flock of flamingos, the collective noun being – appropriately for this gardener – a flamboyance. Inspired by the father of a friend who had flamingos on his property, Claire started inserting the one-legged ornaments into the gravel.
“You know, it could be a bit tacky but you have to have a bit of kitsch in your garden to make it fun.”
There are other pockets of kitsch, depending on your taste. A headless torso on a tree stump with a leafy blanket at her feet, a bent spoon and
forks hanging from a tree, and garden furniture and steps painted in multicolour.
Locals who know Claire’s garden will remember it once contained a broken TV, circa 1980, in homage to Kiwi artist Don Driver.
These everyday items sit alongside pieces of art, like the lean bird goddess sculpted from Taranaki andesite by Oriah Rapley, which sits on a pillar of corten steel and is dwarfed by mature trees, fluffy hydrangeas and lush planting.
Claire balances her love of colour with swathes of green and gentle curving lawns. South-facing and with mature trees, the garden is also shady.
Different types of hedging define areas. Photinia ‘Red Robin’ encloses the red garden with its planting of everything from daylilies, salvia and yarrow to red-flowering nasturtium, Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and rhubarb, all edged with lilyturf (Liriope muscari).
Across a grass path inserted with square pavers, the vegetable and flower-picking garden is reined in by clipped buxus hedging. Another square of buxus surrounds a garden of wild flowers with herbs, bulbs and architectural gems like globe artichokes.
Claire also has a yellow and pink garden with black-eyed rudbeckias, perennial sunflowers, feverfew, a Graham Thomas rose, spotted laurel (Aucuba japonica), alstroemeria, hellebores and bergenia.
The garden has brought Claire consolation as well as joy, particularly when she underwent chemotherapy last year after surgery for pancreatic cancer.
She makes light of her skill in its development. “I don’t really know what I’m doing half the time but who wants to be that organised? That’s the nature of gardening. You don’t really know what’s going to happen from season to season.”
Don’t be fooled – properties like this require imagination and tenacity. Retired from teaching and helped by her sister and a student, she will get the garden ready for inclusion in the Taranaki Garden Festival later this year.
It means new visitors can run their hands over The Creature, a shaggy shrub given its name by Claire because of its round head and vegetation resembling arms wrapped around its body. Or gaze up through the Witches Circle made up of eight tall tapered Thuja occidentalis conifers... as Claire continues to share her love of fun and inventiveness with others.