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Generations of gardeners have worked this garden, so stories and memories of those loved and lost forever are never far away.

STORY: SUE ALLISON

Jemma and Richard Gloag’s lush country garden, complete with tranquil pond, almost seems out of place against the bleak grandeur of the surrounding landscape. Buscot Station, near Omarama, sits in South Canterbury’s Mackenzie Basin, a glacial expanse that can resemble a moonscape around both solstices.

Summers are hot and dry while winter brings snow and temperatures as low as -20C. “The conditions here are almost desert-like, with extremes of hot and cold,” says Jemma.

They have Richard’s parents, Cate and Tony, to thank for the bones of the surprisingly verdant garden. Tony, who still lives on the station and runs its backpacker business, was involved with the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association and is passionate about trees.

“It was pretty desolate here in the 1950s,” he recalls.

“As a small child, I would look up that hill and the only vegetation on it was two matagouri bushes.”

The vast array of trees he began planting more than half a century ago have created an invaluable microclimate. “The garden is like an oasis,” says Jemma. “Having trees means we can grow a lot more as they provide shelter and also shade, which conserves moisture.”

Jemma sees gardens as a metaphor for life: “You have to work with what you’ve got. At times, things look good and other things don’t look so good. Unforeseen things happen that you can’t do much about. Just enjoy the good bits when you can.”

Buscot and its gardeners have experienced more than their share of all these things, and the garden is a poignant reminder of the fragility of life.

Richard’s mother, Cate, was a keen gardener. She was likely dreaming of a garden wedding for her daughter when tragedy struck. Rachel, aged 23, and her boyfriend were both killed in a car accident while travelling in Canada in 1996. Cate died the following year. Jemma and Richard have an added connection in shared tragedy, Jemma having lost her own mother and sister before she turned 7.

“I guess that is the power of the garden. You get out there and do a lot of contemplating.”

Jemma also comes from a family of gardeners, 300km north in Hororata, but initially gravitated to snowfields

Jemma sees gardens as a metaphor for life. “Work with what you’ve got. At times, things look good and other things don’t look so good. Unforeseen things happen that you can’t do much about. Just enjoy the good bits when you can.”

rather than flower beds. “I lived a transient winter life before I met Richard, teaching skiing in both hemispheres for 17 winters,” she says. “When I moved here in 2007, Richard had been bacheloring for four years so things were fairly overgrown.”

They started by cutting out trees to let in more light. “Trees need nurturing here for a long time, so it’s hard to take them out even when you know it’s necessary. Luckily Richard loves chainsaws so he does that side.”

Jemma tackled the beds below one weed at a time, starting with sticky weed, before putting her own stamp on the garden.

She also learned some brutal early lessons in local botany. “When I started out, I planted things I loved and was so disappointed when they died. Now I only go for things I know will grow.” Sedums, phlomis and lavender do well in the dry, and buxus gets five stars for surviving heat, drought and cold.

“I get a lot of plants from local people or nurseries where I know plants are grown for the conditions.”

Several treasures, such as alpine gypsophila ( Gypsophila repens) and a dainty blue phlox with flowers like snowflakes, came from Hokonui Alpines near Gore. Michael Midgely, a mountain plant expert with a crevice garden in Tekapo, gave her a clump of black irises, and Hebe cupressoides, a threatened inhabitant of the Mackenzie Basin, has a safe haven at Buscot.

The growing season is short, starting with a welcome burst of post-winter colour from spring bulbs.

Most natives struggle to survive the extreme winters. Bushy Hall’s tōtara ( Podocarpus laetus) and mountain beech are exceptions, and a few tough coprosmas and ribbonwoods have found their way into sheltered spots.

The growing season is short, starting with a welcome burst of post-winter colour from spring bulbs. “I’ve lined the driveway with daffodils. They struggle in the dry and have taken a long time to multiply, but there are hundreds and thousands of bluebells under the trees,” says Jemma. The bulbs are joined by trilliums and paeonies followed by summer’s flourish of roses, daisies and irises.

Jemma’s new regime spares faded blooms from premature decapitation. “An English gardener gave me a new perspective on dead things in the garden, and I now leave seed heads on for longer.”

Autumn is spectacular with deciduous exotics red and gold against the cool blue of spruces. The price? A “horrific” leaf season. A mechanical sweeper is invaluable for gathering leaves and returning them to the garden as mulch.

“When I started out, I planted things I loved and was so disappointed when they died. Now I only go for things I know will grow,” says Jemma.

Ashes, liquidambars, pin oaks, alders, cedars and giant sequoia are among the trees providing a protective canopy. Those once-bare hillsides are dotted with specimen trees, including edible Spanish chestnuts ( Castanea sativa) and Pinus pinea. Conifers and clipped evergreens, along with massive rocks retrieved from the farm, maintain the garden’s structure through winter.

“I love winter when the garden goes to bed,” says Jemma, who doesn’t so much as put her feet up as buckle on her ski boots. It’s a passion she shares with Richard and their three young sons, Angus, Toby and Max. The Ōhau skifield is just a 30-minute drive away.

The farm is fortunate to have its own irrigation canal and the garden is fitted with hydrants for sprinklers. But Jemma keeps watering to a minimum. She welcomes plants that are attractive and self-reliant. Paeonies top the list. “They grow like weeds. I’ve never planted one but they pop up everywhere.” The flamboyant beauties look as though they might be high maintenance, but they need hard frosts to

Conifers and clipped evergreens, along with massive rocks retrieved from the farm, maintain the garden’s structure through winter.

perform at their best and are tolerant of most conditions.

Many new beds are filled with the progeny of plants first put in by Cate. Armed with a spade and wheelbarrow, Jemma adopts a “divide and ride” approach to filling bare spaces. Much of the garden is bordered with the descendants of a single Alchemilla mollis. Vigorous giant catmint has clawed its way along sunny edges and a wee clump of orange daylilies spawned splashes of colour through the garden.

When a large conifer mysteriously died, possibly due to the double stress of drought followed by a rare deluge, Jemma created a new garden on the site by relocating about 50 plants in a day. Cardoons, purple-headed alliums and blue geraniums now sit in a froth of white gypsophila under Cornus ‘Eddie’s White Wonder’, an engagement present now thriving without the conifer for competition.

The provenance of plants is important to Richard and Jemma. Autumn crocuses by the pool and a tall mountain beech were gifts from friends; a groundcover of creeping strawberry came from Jemma’s childhood home. “I got a little bit from my dad and it’s gone nuts. The birds must love it because I’ve never seen a berry on it.” Most significant are the ‘Wedding Day’ roses Cate planted over arches leading to a sheltered lawn. “I think she was planting this garden thinking Rachel might get married here one day. I often think about that while I’m out here.”

A remarkable oak, the first in the area, started life as a duck’s dinner. “Tony’s father went duck shooting at Benmore Station and when his mother opened up the ducks, she found acorns in their gizzards. She planted some and this one survived.”

Richard’s grandmother also planted a lot of fruit trees. Her orchard, its gnarled trees now interspersed with younger companions, keeps the family in fruit while a raised potager is filled with rambling herbs and vegetables.

“I have a love-hate relationship with vegetables,” says Jemma. “Seedlings are often knocked by late frosts, then we’re busy in summer when it’s scorching hot and everything goes to seed.”

If the trees are the lifeblood of the garden, the pond is its soul. Created by Cate and Tony in a swampy patch at the bottom of the lawn, it is home to rare bignose galaxias and resounds with the croaking of frogs in summer. An arched bridge leads to an island where a stone memorial to Cate and her daughter is etched with the words: Always missed, never forgotten. Alongside is a rope swing and homemade raft, reinforcing the fact that this garden is a happy playground as well as a place for reflection.

“Visitors to the garden often say it feels really peaceful which is oner of the biggest compliments I could get,” says Jemma.

LEVIN

en-nz

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuffmagazines.pressreader.com/article/283966066847576

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