Idyllic garden open to the community for spring fundraiser
Yeverley McCarthy's life-long enthusiasm for her Hawea Flat garden has never waned from the day she stepped through the door to her historic farm cottage in 1978. The Hawea Flat community worker is looking forward to sharing her idyllic surroundings with the public on Sunday as part of the Lake Hawea Community Centre's fundraising Spring Garden Ramble.
Yeverley, a former North Islander, always knew she would be a gardener but hadn't dreamed Hawea Flat would capture her heart. But then she met her husband, industrial biochemist and a fourth-generation Hawea Flat McCarthy, Bill. He was working at Hellabys and she was working in sales and marketing in Auckland.
"When I proposed to him, he said, 'Well, we'll have to come home to Hawea Flat'," she recalled.
It was a deal and the couple enjoyed many long years together raising their family, farming and volunteering in the community before Bill died with leukaemia in 2013, aged just 65.
Over time, the 121-year-old stone cottage has been renovated, extended and remodelled.
Yeverley recalls when she moved it in was "all little rooms, a tiny kitchen, no view".
Just a few years ago, she and her husband finally decided to remove one of the internal walls to open up the living area so they could enjoy views across the farm to the mountains in the west.
Early photos show the house sitting in the middle of empty grasslands but Sunday's visitors will come up a drive lined with oak, chestnut and walnut trees, passing an organic orchard of pears, apples and plums on the left.
Johanna's legacy also includes a wellingtonia, a yew tree (wrapped and bound recently to keep it going). Varigated camellias share space with a magnolia stellata, a double cherry (in full bloom at the moment), and an huge, contorted wisteria which Yeverley has trained to grow up a palm tree.
"Johanna did a plan. We still have a book of all the trees she planted. When she got married, she was told she had a choice. Water, or a car. It was 1912 so she choose water. It comes from Hospital Creek, from a spring. It's the same system we use today, a gravity-fed system. Once we put our own irrigation system on - it comes in from an artesan bore - that tops the system up and now we have no problems or stress [about running out]."
Yeverley says the garden was a "great garden" under the watch of her mother-in-law, Muriel McCarthy, who picked up where Johanna left off and planted many more trees, including rhododendrons, an interesting gingko tree and an exotic "handkerchief tree" (or "ghost tree") that is very frost tender and just starting to flower this week.
Muriel's great gardening mates were Maryed Urquhart, who used to have The Nook nursery, Wanaka writer and retired Morven Hills Station farmer Madge Snow, who now lives in Wanaka, and the late Fiona Rowley of Lake Hawea Station.
"They are all very, very keen on their gardens and they had lots of precious bits and pieces that they just loved," Yeverley said.
"My only claim to fame is the liquid amber… I had the Tree Tamers out here recently and they told me it was rotten in the middle and has to be chopped down," Yeverley said.
A large hedged row of Douglas Fir shelters the garden from nor-west winds that rush down from the main divide, providing Yeverley with a calm spot to sit on the verandah, next to tremendously tall, flaming tulips gifted to her by Invercargill bulb growers, the Van Eeden family, after Bill passed away.
"I like roses and my peonies. I like all the seasons. That's the nice thing. You get different things for every season. It is idyllic. And I am doing more development with beech tree planting and replacing some of the trees that had to be removed."
Although the garden was always Yeverley's domain, Bill never let her down with hard work and he took particular pride in a willow tree in the driveway, which he kept nicely trimmed into an arch.
"It is very much mine and Bill's. We've worked hard and we love it. Even though Bill has died, I couldn't go to town. It is my heart and soul. I don't want any old Philistine taking over. They could wreck it," Yeverley laughed.
Written by Majorie Cook. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz
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