FISHERMANS BAY
As readers of an Italian magazine poured over beautiful images of Banks Peninsula garden Fishermans Bay this month, they were in blissful ignorance of the atrocious summer Jill and Richard Simpson had been experiencing.
The narrow winding road that regularly led buses of domestic and international garden tourists down from the peninsula’s spine to Fishermans Bay, was all but destroyed in December, following the biggest storm event in decades. Finding themselves cut off as they scrambled to get home from a visit to Akaroa, the pair abandoned their vehicle and negotiated the steep climb down on foot in torrential rain.
They spent hours precariously skirting slips that had carried their only road away down the gully. With their home completely cut off for a week and access gate padlocked as a closed road for many more, the Simpsons were just grateful for a generator and helicopter drops of provisions, knowing neighbouring bays were worse off than they.
Words and photography by Julia Atkinson-Dunn
Garden profile
LOCATION: Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, New Zealand
SIZE: Approx. 2 hectares as part of rural 100-hectare property
ENVIRONMENT: East facing on an exposed coastal hillside, steep in places. Typically hot dry summers, with increasingly catastrophic periods of rainfalls. Prevailing easterly wind.
Fishermans Bay and Goat Point just to its left, are the first pieces of land touched by the sun in the South Island. Making it the second place (after Gisborne) to greet each day in the world!
The incredible naturalistic planting that tumbles down the hillside like a patchwork quilt!
“This part of the garden seems to sing with the seasons, moving through fresh spring greenness, saturated patchworks of summer colour, and the long-limbed, rich tones of autumn. Come winter it will be a sea of shifting texture, neutral and fascinating in its quiet state before being cut back ready for the cycle to begin again”
The Simpsons shared this story as I sat guzzling elderflower cordial after a morning spent photographing the breathtaking magic of their garden at dawn. It was hard to imagine the large tumbling beds of naturalistic planting clinging on for dear life as a torrent of water attempted to wash it all down to the sea. Instead, I had sat in the stillness of twilight, listening to bulls roaring at each other across paddocks and the magpie chorus counting me down for the sun’s breach of the horizon. The orange beams finding their focus and touch on the South Island, choosing to be here first each day before any other point.
As it is today, the garden is settled across approximately two hectares of steep, east-facing hillside. While it is mostly frost-free, drought and wind provide the most regular challenges. These are followed by occasional bouts of catastrophic wet, as was demonstrated this summer.
Giant macrocarpas shield the gardens back, supported by the undulations of the land, pockets of mature native bush, and a criss-cross of terracing and paths. Unable to be viewed in full from any single point, this is a rewarding garden to explore, moving from the wide traditional perennial border, outstanding swathes of hebe planting, cool native forest, and the cascading naturalistic beds that rests across the hill like a tapestry.
Jill Simpson has attached herself to gardens and the natural world her whole life. A country girl, she spent more time on the moss garden around her doll’s house than the house itself. Continuing her garden making into small spaces at flats while young and traveling.
Her passion for gardening was only tempered by her passion for art. She has studied fine art and art history between children, moving on to landscape design and landscape architecture papers allowing her to work as a designer while raising her family as a single mother.
On meeting Richard Simpson 25 years ago, the couple would split their time between their Christchurch-based families and the peninsula property, driving backward and forward until their children had grown and Fishermans Bay could become their full-time base, 18 years ago. In those busy years, the garden was comparably low-key to match their schedule. Over time, they extended the garden out from the house, with the planting and tone in reflection of Jill’s interests at each stage.
New Zealand natives and exotics melt into each other.
“Each new area reflects a time in my gardening evolution. The soil and shelter available provided challenges and opportunities, dictating what could be grown and what I could manage to maintain. All new gardens present a gardener with much more of a challenge while they establish. One of the joys of gardening is that one is always learning.”
Passionate about their area’s natural heritage, they planted pockets of natives, picking only from the palette of plants that chose to grow there naturally. Extending from this, they have planted further, using natives from all corners of the country. Inspired by the meadow or prairie plantings of the Northern Hemisphere, Jill sought to interpret this style by building a large collection of hebe’s. She is the first to admit that her vision was never truly achieved by using the native flowering shrubs with this goal, frustratingly curtailed by large gaps when a plant failed for any given reason.
“Each new area reflects a time in my gardening evolution. The soil and shelter available provided challenges and opportunities, dictating what could be grown and what I could manage to maintain. All new gardens present a gardener with much more of a challenge while they establish. One of the joys of gardening is that one is always learning” shared Jill.
As her experience and understanding of her environment grew, Jill turned her hand toward mixing natives with exotic plants. This was a chance to reignite her long-held passion for perennials and the establishment of a new area of garden inspired by the planting philosophies of The New Perennial Movement.
This part of the garden seems to sing with the seasons, moving through fresh spring greenness, saturated patchworks of summer colour, and the long-limbed, rich tones of autumn. Come winter it will be a sea of shifting texture, neutral and fascinating in its quiet state before being cut back ready for the cycle to begin again.
“Then there is the deep satisfaction and joy I feel when all of the things that make gardens happen come together. Like nature, the weather, a burst of inspiration or chance in the form of a seedling aligning successfully to be experienced by me, by Richard, and by the visitors to the garden.”
“This garden gives me a wonderfully complex and challenging way to express the creativity that I think lies within my personality. I love the planning and the searching for new and interesting plants and ideas. I love the making and the weeding and am at my happiest working outside in the garden.
Then there is the deep satisfaction and joy I feel when all of the things that make gardens happen come together. Like nature, the weather, a burst of inspiration or chance in the form of a seedling aligning successfully to be experienced by me, by Richard, and by the visitors to the garden.”
Fishermans Bay is an extraordinary garden in an extraordinary place.
It has captured the hearts of a global audience with features in top garden publications and showcased in five books to date. Some of the world’s most prominent garden personalities have visited or led tour groups through its gates including Richard Bloom, Noel Kingsbury, Michael McCoy, Jimi Blake and Simon Ricard. A feature photographed by Claire Takacs appeared in Gardens Illustrated, one of the most revered garden magazines on the planet.
Fisherman’s Bay is open by appointment 10 am – 4 pm each day, Wednesday to Sunday.
$15 per person. Book online at www.fishermansbay.nz
This is an expanded version of the article featured in my Stuff ‘Homed’ gardening column for beginners , The Press, Dominion Post and other regional papers on March 31st 2022
All words and images are my own, taken with permission at Fisherman’s Bay garden, early March 2022.