Stuff Magazines

A FRESH START

These passionate Tauranga gardeners created a heavenly haven following heartbreak

WORDS MONIQUE BALVERT- O’ CONNOR

LEFT The pathway leading to the main lawn at the back of Lara Bui and Isaac Weston’s Tauranga house is flanked by a forest pansy tree ( Cercis canadensis) at left, underplanted with alyssum and lithodora, and a flowering cherry at right, underplanted with big-leafed bergenia; Isaac built the paths and the gazebo in the background. RIGHT Isaac’s trio of sculptures, Summit, Reflection and Journey, and the verdigris copper jellyfish in the orange tree enhance the couple’s favourite lunchtime spot, alongside the pizza oven; the tall New South Wales Christmas tree is a riot of colour in summer while Honey the cat is on garden patrol.

The birth, nurturing and growth of Lara Bui and Isaac Weston’s garden involves a poignant story. The Tauranga couple found gardening and growing plants healing after accepting that children weren’t in their future. “We get to grow life in a different way,” Lara says. They had moved from Auckland to Bay of Plenty in 2006 to enjoy a simpler life and start a family. The following years were both wonderful, thanks to their new beachside lifestyle in Mt Maunganui, and difficult, due to infertility and unsuccessful rounds of IVF. By 2010, a fresh start was needed.

“Isaac pointed out a property over the bridge in Tauranga that I’d been secretly fantasising about. Huge, with water views. I never dreamed we would actually get to live there. The day after we took over the property, we launched ourselves at it with great vigour fixing problems with the house first and then it was the garden’s turn.”

A passion for gardening developed, at a frenzied pace. “We didn’t stop for three years. Now we do the things we want to do but at a much more relaxed pace. We can’t imagine our lives without it.”

The property was, almost, a blank canvas. “It had a toilet bowl with parsley growing out of it, dead lawn, bromeliads, 80 tree stumps and some spiky plants. It was pretty rugged,” says Lara.

Weeks were spent digging out the tree stumps, then creating garden beds, gazebos, retaining walls and decks, which were built as Lara and Isaac were able to access the resources.

“A lot is reclaimed. We are known to our friends and neighbours as the local Wombles. If anyone is throwing something out that could be repurposed, we’ll get a call. All this made the garden development an affordable project and fun too,” says Lara.

A 1970s deck balustrade, for example, is now painted sunny yellow and used as a frame for star jasmine to climb, and the gazebo’s Japanese-style slats are offcuts from a roofing company. Many hours were spent chipping mortar off recycled bricks that Isaac and his dad Alf used for their pizza oven project, although it’s not exclusively for pizza. Isaac is a former chef so it is used for an array of delicious dishes such as slow-cooked pork, lamb roast, Christmas ham and almond tarts.

Fruit tree planting was an early focus – peach, plum, pear, guava, loquat, apple, lemon, avocado and orange, with the single orange tree producing 280kg of fruit last year. Trees offering “colour and softness” followed, such as forest pansy, maples and a standardised liquidambar, which Lara describes as a

ABOVE A cobalt blue copper kina made by Isaac is an eye-catching focal point in a sea of flowers, vegetables and herbs; the towering hedge is eugenia and the palm is a nīkau. RIGHT Vegetables are cherished at this property too, especially given former chef Isaac’s culinary skills; the prolific orange tree heralds the arrival to this corner of the garden with its potager beds while star jasmine along the back fence grows up a climbing frame that was an old balustrade.

“ridiculously cute little tree”. She loved the look so much, she has standardised her bay leaf tree too. The leaf fall is left to feed what lies beneath, which includes rosemary, thyme, calendula and other flowering plants. “We have a lot of colour – it brings joy – in our eclectic, ever-evolving garden,” Isaac says. “There are no themes and it wasn’t planned in one hit. There are different rooms offering differing views, which is lovely.”

Isaac has built decks with wraparound seating to act as viewing platforms – the property’s southern boundary overlooks a salt marsh. Says Isaac: “I love digging holes and making structures, while Lara loves choosing trees and working on the garden’s layout and design.”

The couple take gardening so seriously that they have studied horticulture, expanding their knowledge on topics such as companion planting, food forests, soil management and drainage. For Lara, that led to launching an indoor plant business, Cool Plants, six years ago. After a dream run, she closed it last year to work alongside Isaac in his rapidly growing venture.

Burnt out after years as a travel agent, he stepped away in 2017 to create copper art full-time through two businesses, Isaac Weston Artist and Re.Work.It. His pieces include indoor copper patinaed wall art and garden sculptures, many of which feature in their home garden and on-site gallery.

One of Isaac’s working stations is atop one of the decks. The estuary views, birdlife and increasingly beautiful gardens are an inspiration. “It’s a pretty amazing place to work,” he says.

Lara is a fan of Isaac’s art and his culinary skills. She loves that her husband knows that excess parsley belongs in falafels, mint has transformational powers when added to Vietnamese salads and spicy pork balls, spinach adds wow to lentil pies, broad beans work well with feta in fritters, that tomatoes are made for kasundi chutney and black doris plums are perfect for sorbet and almond tarts. Never mind the snow peas, she says – devoured on the spot, they never make it to the kitchen.

And when all the creating, in its many forms, is done there’s a garden in which to simply relax.

“Every morning we start with a cuppa in the main gazebo joined by our SPCA specials – cats Carlos and Honey. Lunch we often enjoy on the deck by the pizza oven, shaded by the orange tree. At the end of the day, we relax on our new little deck beneath the camellia tree and enjoy the view as the sun goes down – with the sun behind them, the forest pansy and ‘Bloodgood’ maple trees look as if they are on fire.”

The contentment is well-earned after years of hard work and courageous new beginnings.

‘There are no themes and it wasn’t planted in one hit. There are different rooms offering different views’

/ GARDENS TAURANGA

en-nz

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuffmagazines.pressreader.com/article/283158612982029

Stuff Limited