From Heritage New Zealand, Winter 2010

by Sarah Beresford

What defines a heritage garden and how authentically should it be maintained? There are as many answers as there are custodians of our historical sites.

Anyone who has ever attempted to keep the average suburban section under control can tell you how fickle mother nature can be. Well-tended beds can collapse into unruly abandon in weeks, mature trees can shed limbs, split apart, turn up their toes and die, the winding tendrils of weeds wandering in from neighbouring gardens have the capacity to strangle the living daylights out of beloved specimens within days.

If the challenges of conserving heritage buildings seem rigorous, the dilemmas faced by those trying to manage heritage gardens are even more onerous as gardeners are dealing with living things. And what defines a “heritage” garden anyway, given the fact that the one thing that is reliable about gardens is that they are constantly changing? The definition is far-ranging, from the historical significance of a site to a fine example of a domestic garden or an exceptional plant collection. A site that is associated with our cultural heritage also falls within the parameters of what has been recognised as heritage.

And decisions about how they are tended on a continuing basis are just as diverse. Because gardens are always growing and changing, planning how to manage them so that they retain their heritage values is ongoing. After all, how important is it that they  stay strictly to the planting plans of their time? How authentic do they need to be to have value or, indeed, to live up to their heritage status?

Our European forebears were often dismissive of the botanical heritage of their adopted country. Consequently, heritage gardens do not generally reflect our indigenous flora as only the occasional toitoi or cabbage tree was allowed to slip out of the bush and rub shoulders with its imported exotic cousins. Those charged with managing heritage sites face the dilemma of whether natives should be considered when upgrading or expanding gardens and plant collections, or whether they should stay strictly true to the values of their creators.

Susan Clunie worked as a gardens advisor for the NZHPT and is familiar with the intellectual and physical demands of planting and maintaining heritage gardens on sites such as Pompallier Mission in Russell, Clendon Mission House in Rawene and Te Waimate Mission at Kerikeri. For her, the role of heritage gardens is very clearly defined. “They have an aesthetic role that is inherently educational in the broadest sense of raising awareness about heritage and the way it can be experienced. They contain elements that anyone can aspire to replicate, even if it’s only a bed of annuals. This makes them one of the more accessible forms of tangible heritage.”

She is adamant that there is no room for guesswork or random planting plans in a true heritage garden. “Heritage gardens require special care that devolves from a robust conservation planning process that has at its heart comprehensive research,” she says. “It is vital to understand the significance of each element within the garden. There is a risk of loss of detail and definition where wrong assumptions are made.

“It is very important to use those plant varieties still available as a starting point. For instance, Pompallier Mission reached its climax as the Edwardian garden of Henry Stephenson [the last private owner who lived at Pompallier from 1905, purchased it in 1913 and sold it to the government in 1943]. I re-used perennials that were already on site, augmenting them with plants that I had identified from historic photos or knew to be in common use in that period.

“An example of this is the Arundo donax ‘Variegata’ which I re-established in the garden. I followed the advice of William Robinson [prominent late-19thcentury Canterbury pastoralist and horticulturalist] and cut it down to the ground every year in autumn and, just as he described, got a wonderful plume of creamy foliage tinged with pink every spring just in time to complement Rosa ‘Anais Segales’. Where specific varieties and plants are not available, sensitive and educated substitution should be made. One often hears the sentiment that ‘they would have used this had it been available’, which is not good garden conservation practice.”

Greg Rine is responsible for the ongoing maintenance and development of two very different examples of heritage gardens in Taranaki: Tupare and Hollards. Both are domestic gardens and, rather  than having historical significance as such, their classification is a tribute to the extraordinary vision of their owners. Sir Russell Matthews was an avid plantsman who loved collecting new specimens and created a stand-out garden around his home, designed by architect James Chapman Taylor. Bernie Hollard was a dairy farmer who was captivated by gardening and amassed a significant plant collection on his property during his lifetime.

Greg has a very pragmatic approach to what is important in terms of sustaining a garden’s heritage values. “We’ve invested in upgrading the gardens and have taken a broad interpretation not just of the plants, but of the culture of days gone by, right down to the geology of the land and the dairy farming days.  “Sir Russell liked to follow gardening fashions and prided himself on having the latest plant varieties and exotic specimens. So, in terms of plant material, we are happy to follow fashions if we think it’s in character. We do use some new varieties but they have to work in with the spirit and aesthetics of the original garden.

“Bernie Hollard was an enthusiastic plant collector and breeder, so we try to carry that on by expanding the collection. It’s not a static thing. We try to combine the good things of the past with the knowledge we have today. Visiting a heritage garden like Tupare should foremost offer a wonderful sensual experience.

Education is important and we try to attact young people to the gardens, hoping that by enjoying the experience they will appreciate their  eritage. We’ve recently installed new signage at Hollards and we’ve invested a lot in making the language and expressions a true reflection of the day. We’ve tried to make Bernie ‘speak’ on the signs, so that it seems as if he is talking to you as you go around the garden.” 

That said, Greg recognises that they have done some things at Hollards, such as installing a barbecue area and children’s playground, of which  ernie would not have approved and that seem at odds with heritage principles. “We have to maintain Tupare and Hollards as domestic gardens. They still have to have that look and feel as if their former owners were managing them. If we don’t do that, we’re in danger of turning them into institutional parks.

“We’re a young nation and we need to grasp and celebrate what we can and help to create an understanding of our heritage. The challenge for us will never end if we want to remain relevant and inspirational. To be successful we need to continually fine-tune the gardens.”

Paul Wynen is curator of a heritage garden that is really a collection of plants and managing this asset provokes continual debate among its board of trustees. Eastwoodhill Arboretum in Gisborne contains the largest collection of Northern-Hemisphere trees south of the equator, including many endangered species, gathered by Douglas Cook. The collection was started in 1910 and as Douglas watched events unfolding in Europe, he saw his collection as a repository for species that could be wiped out during the two world wars.

“We’re in the process of completing a 100-year plan for managing the arboretum,” says Paul. “Douglas planted the trees in a very random fashion. He didn’t have a planting plan and many of the trees are too close together. Considering the space around the trees is actually more important than the trees themselves when you’re assessing future plans. We have the task of trying to preserve the past collection while re-establishing it in a more meaningful way. We have 20 hectares of bare land that we are planning to redevelop and how we do that will be very important to the future relevance of the arboretum.”

There have been discussions about whether or not some of this land should be used for native species endemic to the region but the board is still a long way from reaching a conclusion. It is indicative of the sensitive nature of managing a plant collection of this nature because decisions will have ramifications for literally hundreds of years to come.

“In a way, the arboretum is a massive seed bank and it has a preservation role as a repository that’s still very relevant today with worldwide threats to biodiversity, climate change and deforestation,” says Paul. “But I don’t see its primary role as educational. I like to think that people who come here will get caught up in the pure beauty of it all and be driven to find out more about the collection as a result.

“For instance, I don’t like the idea of signage everywhere telling people things because it distracts from the experience. I would like to think that people feel lifted up away from the pressures of life when they come here. The aesthetics come first and, I hope, through them people will appreciate the significance of the collection.”

Susie Fitzgerald, a volunteer who works there for several days each week, has a different reference point for the ongoing development of the heritage gardens around Katherine Mansfield House in Thorndon, Wellington. “Katherine only lived in the house for the first five years of her life; there are a few photographs of the property from the late 1880s but they don’t show very much. The board of trustees decided that we should create a late-Victorian style of garden and we have extended that by incorporating a lot of the flowers and plants that Katherine wrote about.”

So the garden reflects its literary heritage in a horticultural way. “There’s a surprising amount of material to draw from when deciding what to plant. Katherine wrote a story about the Wellington Botanical Gardens and referred to a lot of flowering plants in her writing. She loved natives and we have included cabbage trees in the garden as they were very popular with Victorian gardeners. The big challenge is finding appropriate annuals because so many have been hybridised over time. For instance, petunias now have much larger flowers and the colour waves are often not appropriate for what was available then.”

Margaret Barker, owner of Dunedin’s 140-yearold Larnach Castle for the past 43 years, was gifted something of a blank canvas when she started work on developing the extensive grounds around the stone building. “Larnach was not a gardener and the garden was nothing to speak of when he lived in the castle. There was an essential structure of carriageways and dry-stone walls, so we use the same techniques and materials as closely as possible when we do something new,” she says.

What is fascinating about the property’s development is that Margaret has created a new garden on a heritage site, which will in time surely become a heritage garden in its own right. She has incorporated many New Zealand natives into the design so that it truly reflects the mix of our  heritage. The sculptural forms of cabbage trees stand true against the burnished foliage of a copper beech tree; the rainforest garden with its kowhai, Pseudopanax  laetus and tree ferns is enlivened by red South African montbretia.

“The actual plants themselves are not relevant and we haven’t done an historical garden as such,” she says. “The gardens around the house are not Victorian but have been designed to be in sympathy with the era and the building. We’re not trying to be educational with the garden. It’s all about expanding people’s horizons.”

The relatively new South Seas garden, showcasing “southern plants from southern lands”, is a case in point and is a wonderful example of how we can reference what is unique about New Zealand and our place in the world through a garden. It features a collection of plants from neighbouring islands such as the Chathams and Kermadecs and underlines our wider geographical and horticultural heritage as a South Seas nation. The garden has striking views over Otago Harbour to Port Chalmers. “It’s an interpretation of where we are in the world and our immediate landscape – the lines of the garden follow the patterns of water in the harbour.”

After all, one of the challenges of coming years is to identify current gardens that should be earmarked for heritage status. Gordon Collier, prominent plantsman and a senior assessor for the New Zealand Gardens Trust for many years, touches on the dilemma faced by heritage gardens. “Most gardens don’t survive a generation,” he says, “and ongoing development of the gardens we have is always going to provoke debate and discussion. You’re managing a living thing. A lot of work is done by volunteers to keep the gardens we have going, which is wonderful, but planning can be time consuming because they are usually run by boards. Consensus about what makes a heritage garden 'heritage’ and how that should be preserved while keeping it relevant, is always going to be a problem.”