Even the steepest section has possibilities for a keen Dunedin gardener, as Gillian Vine finds.
Winter, it is said, is the best time to choose a house but Gordon Michie is not sure of the wisdom of the old saying.
When he and his wife, Marion, decided to buy their Mornington property just over 50 years ago, snow blanketed the section, hiding its flaws.
"It was really overgrown," Mrs Michie recalls.
"I don't know if I would have bought it if I'd seen how overgrown it was," Mr Michie says.
Behind the house, the section rose at a steep angle, possibly as much as 90 degrees, so clearing weeds and brambles took enormous energy - and probably a bit of courage on that slope.
The next step was to begin terracing, making solid stone retaining walls so Mr Michie could grow vegetables.
The first year he grew potatoes, he harvested "a coal-sack full". A friend asked what variety he had grown and Mr Michie said, "King Edward".
Assured that another variety of certified seed would do better, Mr Michie bought the rather expensive kind his friend recommended.
"And I didn't get a single one, so I gave up after that."
That gave Mrs Michie a chance to indulge in her passion for flowers.
"A lot of the plants we've got came from a lady who lived up the back."
They have added a Memory Lane element, as well as variety, to the garden.
"And I love azaleas. I'm a bit Scotch. If they're ones I like, I dig them up and split them," she says.
The Michies say their garden is mainly a spring one, when in a great burst of colour, azaleas, trailing pink mossy Phlox (P. subulata) and great mounds of blue Lithodora cover the terraces, interspersed with clumps of golden Trollius, a relation of Ranunculus, and herbaceous paeonies.
However, Mrs Michie is quick to point out, "I've always got something flowering."
They have created a gem from a wilderness but asked if he'd do it again, Mr Michie says: "Not now but maybe if I was younger."
