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Karen Jackson is in the habit of rescuing unwanted plants. Running an Auckland-based gardening business, if clients want a makeover and things are being dug out, quite often she can’t resist taking them home and finding a space for them.
Fortunately, Jackson and her partner Dean Halligan have a large rural property with a rambling country-style garden, extensive orchards, a poolside subtropical oasis, and a conservatory for indoor plants, which means there is a place for almost any botanical waif or stray.
Jackson has worked as a gardener for more than 30 years and these days mostly takes care of the management of her and Halligan’s business, Garden Care. In her leisure time she can be found with her hands in the earth of her own property, enjoying the landscape they have created. “I call it eye candy because you go out there and your eyes are darting everywhere – there’s so much to look at,” she says.
Sally Tagg/NZ Gardener/Stuff
Dog breeder Karen Jackson credits her furry companions with keeping pests out of her rural Auckland garden.
When Jackson met Halligan, he already lived on the property in Bombay, south of Auckland and for a while she was mainly a weekend visitor. “There were masses and masses of bulbs everywhere,” she recalls. “Nerines and Naked Ladies (Amaryllis belladonna), daffodils, freesias, bluebells and snowdrops would pop up all over the place. During my first couple of years with Dean, I started digging them up and replanting them together in clumps.”
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Once the couple moved in together, Jackson set about planning something much more ambitious, aiming for a relaxed country style overflowing with colourful flowers. The first thing on her mind was structure and form. “Structure is really important in a garden that’s quite floppy and doesn’t have a lot holding it together.”
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Large she-oak trees were already on the property and provide a windbreak. Jackson has planted Michelia trees, flowering cherry ‘Prunus Awanui’ and Gleditsia Ruby Lace.t aut
The work began in 2016 with the carting up of lots of rocks from the creek that runs through the property. Some of these have been used as features around the house and others helped form a series of garden beds. Shallow trenches were dug around each one and the rocks sunk into them to create an edging. More soil was brought in to raise the beds which are all in irregular, rounded shapes and an evergreen border was formed with buxus hedging. Finally, it was time for the creative fun of filling in all those new spaces.
Jackson began by giving the garden a backbone of feature trees. She loves the Jury magnolias in particular ‘Black Tulip’ and ‘Iolanthe’. She also planted ‘San Jose’, ‘Genie’ and Magnolia stellata. Also, there is an Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’ with its maroon-red foliage so the garden is assured of plenty of autumn and winter drama.
Each of the flowerbeds is themed to a different colour but maintaining this control over palette has proved tricky as plants don’t always live up to their promises. “I’m quite strict about colour but sometimes, a flower that is described as orange will come out yellow, or a pink will look more purple, so then I have to shift it the next year,” says Jackson. “You can’t rely on labels.”
If your roses look like this, take action now for healthy bushes next season.
Her red garden is filled with roses, azaleas, hydrangeas and hellebores; a purple garden is bristling with sage and lavender; a white garden features ‘Limelight’ and ‘Annabelle’ hydrangeas, and fragrant gardenias; a silvery green garden is planted with weeping pear trees; and there is an apricot garden with the David Austin rose ‘Lady of Shalott’.
Since there is so much space, Jackson is keen on perennials that spread and plants that self-sow. A small punnet of six strawflowers has been a particular success and over summer there is now a profusion of the papery daisy-like blossoms. “Once you encourage them, they turn up everywhere and then I just cut them down at the end of the summer.”
Alstroemeria also works hard to fill empty spaces and Jackson says hostas are great fillers growing around the rocks that are positioned alongside the house.
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A view towards the Ararimu Hills and a pink-purple border planted with yesterday-today-and-tomorrow (Brunfelsia pauciflora), and some of the 600 different roses that Jackson has on her property including the showy dark pink David Austin ‘Falstaff’ and the paler ‘Ballerina’.
On the other side of their large modern home is a pool area and fish pond with a lush subtropical garden of palms, hibiscus, bromeliads, mondo grass, vireya rhododendrons and New Guinea impatiens. This is where Jackson likes to sit on a Friday evening, relaxing with a glass of champagne. “We pretend we’re in an apartment and don’t have all this land to worry about,” she says. “We really, really chill out.”
Halligan is the one who tackles any sort of structure that needs building from sheds to retaining walls, while the vegetable garden is Jackson’s domain.
A super-long raised bed runs the entire length of one row of the orchard, and it is here that she grows almost every fruit and vegetable they eat. Jackson bottles or preserves surplus produce or puts it out for sale on the farm-stand at the end of their driveway.
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The pathways used to be lawn but last winter Karen Jackson put down limestone hoggin which is lower maintenance and only needs a little weeding. “The plants can flop over onto it instead of having a hard precise edge and that’s what I love about it,” she says. In the yellow border is lots of Coreopsis ‘Early Sunrise’ which is a hardy plant that flowers prolifically and makes for a great filler.
Again, because she has the luxury of so much space Jackson can leave her vegetables to go to seed. “I’ve got an ongoing supply of vegetables from self-sowing,” she says. “Celery comes up all the time and so does beetroot. One end of the garden is full of parsley that self-sows, so I always have masses of it. Snow peas self-propagate and I haven’t needed to buy lettuce plants for years. And you should see the bees in the vege garden when I let a broccoli plant go to seed.”
Between the rows of fruit trees, there are still more flowers, with swathes of colourful penstemons and towering spiky artichokes.
Since the property is on a bore, there is no shortage of water and they are fortunate not to be bothered too much by pests. Karen does have to battle slugs and snails, and the pūkeko can also pesky but they have had very little destruction caused by rabbits and possums.
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The fish pond is surrounded by subtropicals including oioi and palms.
Jackson is convinced that is because of her other business: She is a breeder of pugs (under the name Beez Kneez) and most of her dogs live in a large purpose-built kennel at the edge of her gardens. “I think the possums and rabbits are scared off by their barking.”
Working in the garden business, Jackson has seen that most Auckland backyards tend to be planted with the same limited range of perennials so she has made a point of going to the smaller nurseries to search out something different.
A particular favourite is Columbine aquilegia – granny’s bonnet – with its uniquely-shaped flowers that appear in spring in so many beautiful colours. “They self-sow all over the garden and I just pluck them out where I don’t want them,” she says.
A garden this size demands a lot of care and dedication but Karen is happy to supply both. “What else would I do with my time? I’m not really one for going walking on the beach or sitting in a cafe and drinking coffee. For me, this is such a joyful place to be and it gives me incredible pleasure. It takes my breath away sometimes.”
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