A garden at Pounawea, in the Catlins, is the perfect foil for an 1890s cottage. Gillian Vine reports.
An old photograph hangs in Ida and John Burgess' 1890s Pounawea cottage.
It shows a neatly dressed boy flanked by a white-bearded man and soberly dressed woman.
Of interest to the gardener are the flowers - Madonna lilies (Lilium candidum) on one side and Canterbury bells (Campanula medium) on the other, suggesting the photograph was taken in late December or early January.
The name of the cottage, Cosy Dell (or possibly Dale) is visible on the wall behind them.
Ida and John have an indirect family connection to the original owners, Albert and Ginny Stenning, and renamed the property Stennings when they bought it six years ago.
Although the house has been added to over the years, from the outside it still looks much the same as in old photographs.
The front door is new but the veranda has the original iron lace and the distinctive cottage shape - the main rooms facing the road and the back sloping towards the kitchen - is clearly seen.
A dense shrubbery of healthy camellias and rhododendrons, and a conifer hedge screen Stennings from the road and protect the garden.
Across the road, the Catlins River estuary looks sluggish at low tide, the occasional boat moored until crib-owners reappear at weekends.
Tranquil now, the river - Pounawea in Maori, hence the name of the settlement - once buzzed with commercial activity.
John explains that, in the early days, the front lawn was a vegetable patch, as the owners grew vegetables to sell to the crews of boats that came to The Landing on the Catlins River.
When the Burgesses bought it, about 0.5ha of Stennings' 2ha grounds were in garden.
"We've actually cut it in half," John says.
"Even so, the hours my wife puts into the garden are incredible," he says.
Ida demurs.
"I wouldn't agree with that," she says.
Because most of the garden was already laid out when they bought Stennings, she says most of what she has done has been a process of refinement.
"Some of the shrubs [almost] had wheels, being shifted here and there," she says.
One of the delights of taking over such an old garden is the variety of plants discovered over time.
"I'm still finding things I didn't know we had," she says.
Some plants were instantly noticeable, though, including an enormous pear in the wooded strip behind what was once a cow byre.
The pear, which may be as old as the house, still bears fruit.
A venerable-looking walnut is deceptive, though, as it was planted only about 40 years ago.
It, too, crops well but Ida has given up expecting to harvest any nuts as a gang of wild sulphur-crested cockatoos always raids the tree before the humans get a look-in.
They are the noisiest thing the visitor is likely to hear, although tui come close.
Looking back
The Catlins has a long history of gardening, going back to pre-European times.
Highlighting part of this history - mainly 1890 to 1920 - is Growing Home: Catlins Gardens Photographs of Then and Now at the Owaka Museum, 10 Campbell St, Owaka, which opened last month and runs into the summer.
The museum is open from 9.30am to 4.30pm on weekdays and from 10am to 4pm at weekends.
