Farmhouse garden full of delights

• Published date: 26 January 2023
• Publication title: Guardian, The

“I spend long hours working on the farm and I wanted a more practical design that would be relatively easy to maintain,” she said

“I wanted to increase the amount of lawn but we needed to make it easy to mow so the aim was to build sturdy borders to contain the garden beds.”

Fenemor found the perfect material in the farm paddocks — a good supply of well-weathered totara fence posts provide borders for some of the plots and smaller pieces have been wired together to provide low fencing for other beds.

She has also planted a lot of box hedging plants to contain some of the beds.

The beds are filled with a wide variety of perennial flowering plants and big clumps of ground cover varieties.

There are lots of dahlia varieties which are a combination of pre-existing bulbs and ones that Fenemor has planted.

“I like to have big groupings of one colour and I’ve moved a few things around so they are in their best spots,” Fenemor said.

“There was a lot of agapanthus throughout the beds and I’ve moved them alongside the driveway.”

Fenemor leads the way down a shady path to the chook house where some happy hens have produced a half dozen eggs that morning.

The well-designed hutch allows the eggs to roll down into a covered tray so there’s no need to go hunting for them and the chickens have a big fenced backyard with shady plants, a water trough, and a sand bath.

“And here’s our rooster,” said Fenemor pointing to a nearby metallic garden ornament.

“He’s the best rooster I’ve known — he doesn’t crow.”

There is a strong smell of sheep manure despite there being no livestock nearby and Fenemor said she had spread the daggy wool from the latest shearing on some of her garden beds.

“It’s fantastic fertiliser,” she said

“It works as mulch, breaks down really well and it attracts a lot of worms.”

Fenemor has discovered a number of vintage farm machinery items and tools around the property and hidden underneath foliage in the garden beds.

As an avid collector of such things, Fenemor said she was delighted with the discoveries.

There’s a ploughshare, cartwheels, and a number of old hand tools which she has had metal plated and fashioned into a gate for her vegetable garden.

The vegetable plot is also fenced with salvaged totara and the beds are covered in pea straw.

“I love the stuff,” said Fenemor.

“It’s great for the vege plants and it keeps the weeds down.”

Another feature salvaged from the farm paddocks is a large boulder with a small weather-worn pond on its surface.

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