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Trees planted more than three decades ago had grown to block the breathtaking views, so what is a gardener to do but to prune and start again.

STORY: CLARE GLEESON

Asignificant event can make you stop and look at something with fresh eyes. For Nick Cooper, it was retirement. Nick and his wife Thelma live with their 10-year-old grandson, Kiwa, in Levin. Their 1907 villa is one of the original farmhouses in the area and Nick has been gardening the surrounding one acre for 36 years. When he retired six years ago Nick began to devote all his time to the garden and now spends most of each day in it.

With more time in the garden, and looking at it anew, Nick realised that over the years the magnificent views the garden had enjoyed when he first moved to the property had disappeared behind the trees he had planted decades before. The only remnant of a view was a peek at the Tararua Ranges that could be seen through an ovalshaped hole Nick had cut in a hedge for garden visitors.

Determined to regain the views provided by the villa’s elevated position, Nick took axe in hand and chopped down the trees blocking the view towards Lake Horowhenua. Once these were removed he realised it was not only his trees inhibiting the view but also his neighbour’s and their neighbours’. Undeterred, he got permission to remove those trees as well and so the vista was restored. This included the lake as well as Moutere Hill, the highest sand dune hill in the southern hemisphere.

The view looking the other way, towards the Tararua Ranges, was the next to be regained.

Nick had planted camellia hedges around the house and these had grown so large they completely blocked the mountain range. The camellias were cut back and then back some more as Nick was so pleased with the initial chop.

With more time in the garden, and looking at it anew, Nick Cooper realised that over the years the magnificent views the garden had enjoyed when he first moved to the property had disappeared behind the trees he had planted decades before.

Golden elms, magnolias, a flowering gum, a chestnut and oak trees were also topped. Several robinia trees were completely removed. A huge American magnolia was allowed to remain, but severely pruned. “It was so exciting to get those views again, it became a whole new garden,” Nick says.

The smaller branches were mulched for compost and a truck took the pile of large branches to Nick’s brother’s property in the country where the family got together for a huge bonfire on Guy Fawkes night.

With the trees lowered, the garden is not only lovely to roam in, but also somewhere to enjoy the views beyond.

To give structure to the garden, as it evolved Nick added hard landscaping and bricks can be seen all over the garden. They are used in paths and for edging as well in the many brick structures; one of the first things the visitor notices coming up the drive are two of the four brick arches.

It started in 1987 when the bricks were laid around the pool. They were brought to the property by a carrier but the hoist on the truck was broken so Nick had to unload them by hand.

Bricks have been coming onto the property ever since and at one time, there were 10 pallets with 400 bricks each outside the house. These bricks came from Christchurch after the earthquake and Nick used them to make the four arches in the garden. Even today, there’s a neatly piled

With the trees lowered, the garden is not only lovely to roam in, but also somewhere to enjoy the views beyond.

stack in the potting shed salvaged from Nick’s brother’s chimney waiting while Nick decides where they’ll go. In total, the garden contains close to 10,000 bricks which add a russet warmth to the green foliage and help to showcase Nick’s plantings. He keeps the bricks looking good by water blasting them.

Another feature of the garden are the stone walls on the garden’s slopes.

Nick got his love of gardening, and of stone walls, from his mother. His family had moved from Wellington to Ōtaki Beach in 1956 to a house bought from Nick’s grandmother; his grandparents had owned it since 1932. Over the next 25 years, Nick’s mother built a stone wall to hold back the sand bank behind their house. The wall she built was eventually four tiers high and traversed by paths. On their way home from visits to Wellington, Nick’s parents would stop to collect any stones they spotted en route and every morning before leaving for primary school, Nick would mix his mother a barrowload of cement and that would last her for the day.

Having learnt the art at his mother’s knee, Nick has made several stonewalls on his own property, adding to them as needed when they are undermined by erosion. A lot of the rocks came from Webbs Quarry in Ōhau.

“It was quite exciting to go right down to the bottom of the quarry to select the rocks, quite nerve-racking.”

In total, the garden contains close to 10,000 bricks which add a russet warmth to the green foliage and help to showcase Nick’s plantings.

Four is a number that keeps cropping up in Nick’s garden. As well as the four brick arches, there are four fountains, four goldfish ponds and four wooden dovecotes which are home to around 30 doves. Once a day Nick feeds the doves on the drive, whistling to them to let them know their meal is ready.

The fluttering doves, brick arches, green lawns and pretty plantings give the garden an Arts and Crafts Movement feel and the many roses fit into this style perfectly. Nick has raised several unknown roses from cuttings taken from his brothers’ farm in the Wairarapa and standard white ‘Iceberg’ roses circle a pond reached through a brick archway. Down the drive, ramblers scramble through the shrubs and a huge ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ forms an archway over a path leading to the vegetable garden.

The vegetable garden, which is in raised beds, is hidden from the main garden, but the herb garden is in pots near the swimming pool for easy access from the kitchen.

There are pots of orchids in front of the house but these will be moved as Nick plans to plant hydrangeas, which he loves, there. A magnificent flowering grape travels three-quarters of the way around the villa.

At the bottom of the garden is a large lawn, which was not part of the original property but bought from the same farmer who sold Nick the homestead a few years later. The paddock only had some prunus growing then, but Nick planted many other trees, including several oaks.

The garden is well fed. Nick has a Hansa chipper which he uses to produce mulch and four large compost bins at the bottom of the property. He also has a bin by the potting shed which he fills up with horse manure from the local horse racing stables.

Until recently, Nick was a keen golfer and for 40 years he gardened once a month at the Levin Golf Club, as well as working in his own garden. Nick began by looking after the garden in front of the clubhouse and after doing this for several years he created a huge garden on the 14th hole. His dog, who gardened with him, was useful in finding golf balls lost by players on the hole, although Nick laughs at the memory. “They were not all ‘lost’.”

Nick’s gardening at the club earned him the nickname Ferdinand with his fellow golfers; joking that instead of hitting a golf ball he stopped and smelt the flowers. Nick’s garden helped the 14th hole earn a place in the 2008 book, 100 Essential New Zealand Golf Holes.

However, today it is in his own garden that Nick spends all his time, working while enjoying the wonderful views he has uncovered all around him.

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2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

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