For the love of trees |
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An avenue of pin oaks leads visitors to the front door.
Louise Dench loves the element of surprise that hedges can bring to a garden. At The Willows, the Halswell garden she shares with her husband Geoff on the outskirts of Christchurch, she has indulged her passion for their leafy architecture.
From the hefty bulk of the huge, original macrocarpa farm hedge to her pruned buxus, English yew, lonicera, escallonia, teucrium, pittosporum and hornbeam, her hedges frame a series of visual treats that reinforce her gardening philosophy.
“I like the idea of hedges enclosing secrets and the feeling that they are going
to take you somewhere,” says Louise. “They take a lot of work to maintain and I clip most of them by hand myself. I find the art of keeping them all straight and neat very satisfying.”
The hedges are also part of Louise’s childhood dream of living in a stone house surrounded by an English-style garden with formal hedges.
“My sister and I grew up in Southland and we were big Enid Blyton fans. We wrote away to join her Famous Five club and, with three friends, we’d have meetings in each other’s macrocarpa hedges, where we’d plan our own adventures.”
The Willows is named after the three 100-year-old willow trees that dominated the property when Geoff and Louise bought it 25 years ago. >
One willow still remains – looming large over the home the Denches built, which is every bit as English in character as Louise had hoped. The Welsh slate roof tiles were shipped to Christchurch from England in 1914 and the huge front doors were made from recycled beams from the old Christchurch Hospital. It is a handsome dwelling that sits solidly in the English-style garden planned by Christchurch landscape designer Ben McMaster.
“I’d had very little gardening experience when we came here, so when I saw Ben’s work I was very excited,” she says. “I loved his English style. I told him I wanted something romantic with a perennial border, a knot garden, a tennis court, room for my two favourites – lavender and roses – and a rambling path around the whole garden. He came up with a plan that we’ve loved ever since. We’ve been constantly amazed at how well and how fast everything has grown – which is half the pleasure of a garden of course.”
Geoff and Louise share a love of trees. The front lawn alone is punctuated by 16 beautiful deciduous specimens; lines of pin oaks border the driveway and the rear tennis court is tucked in behind stands of ginkgo, mop-top robinias, liquidambars and golden ash. Every autumn the property glows as the claret ashes turn blackcurrant red, the elms are smudged with soft golden green and the ash trees spread out their umbrellas of yellow, orange and brown.
“Autumn is one of my favourite times: the garden changes its clothing ready for winter. And then everything bursts into life in November – fresh, pristine, pure. That’s the most beautiful time of all,” says Louise.
Geoff, who owns his own forklift hire company, has developed an extensive glade of native trees at the rear of the house, underplanted with his collection of native ferns. Their lacy fronds entwine with lush epiphytes and broadleaf trees to make The Willows a garden of two parts: the formal English-style front garden with its perennial border and six formal rose beds enclosed in buxus hedges and, in total contrast, the free woodland planting that roams down the west side of the tennis court.
It is a garden that has served the Dench family well. Geoff and Louise’s four sons, Hayden, 27, Brook, 25, Oliver, 23, and William, 21, have grown up here – mowing lawns, raking leaves, pulling weeds. They’ve all left home except William, who still helps by trimming edges. The Willows has also been the perfect setting for an annual tennis tournament complete with an eagerly fought-for cup. >
Another fun games day sees up to 70 of the Denches’ friends gather to compete in rounds of pétanque, lawn bowls, tennis, four-square, chess and darts.
“The garden is central to our lifestyle,” says Louise. “If we’re not working in it, we’re resting or playing in it. We spend a lot of time relaxing and enjoying meals on the front verandah overlooking the rose garden. And there isn’t a day goes by that one of us is not doing something in the garden. I spend about two hours a day pottering about – more in the summer. I’ve even been known to slip out in my pyjamas first thing in the morning for a few hours. It’s one of the nicest times of the day.”
Louise used to believe that if you develop a garden you should maintain it yourself without help – but lately she’s softened her approach. “I was almost embarrassed to have help recently but I’m realising that, if you want a life beyond the garden, you do need someone to come in. We get help once a year to trim the rose garden hedges, the weeping pears and the hornbeam hedge along the front of the property.”
The couple gets an enormous amount of pleasure from the garden but both say they want time for other interests. “I host garden visits, I play tennis, I sew for myself and others and I learn French,” says Louise. “Geoff is a passionate fisherman and we’re building a bach at Little Akaloa on Banks Peninsula. We’re both looking forward to spending more time there when it’s completed. That won’t have a garden. The bach will be a place where we rest.”
Story: Adrienne Rewi
Photographs: Gil Hanly; portrait photograph: Guy Frederick
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