Only a handful of gardens around the globe are real must-visits for garden lovers. Ayrlies, on a large country estate near Whitford, southeast of Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island, is one.
This masterpiece was begun more than 60 years ago by Beverley and Malcolm McConnell. As a young couple, they purchased a large rolling pastoral terrain, meant for cattle, to start their family. They were amateur gardeners with big ideas. They began by turning three acres into a garden, and over the years it grew to 12 acres of heavily planted informal gardens, with several ponds and water features.
Beverley has the eye, and a natural sense of color, texture, and combinations. Her late husband, Malcolm, who headed up a large engineering and construction company, was keenly interested in water. And several years in they hired Oliver Briers, knowing it would take more than just the two of them to realize their dreams. Working by Bev’s side, he helped bring a sense of design to the property, now a lush garden of Eden.
Beverley has been called the Vita Sackville-West of our day, working with a sub-tropical palette of exotics and native plants. Building a garden like this takes a lifetime, and to have a soul it needs an artist at the helm. Now in her 80s, she is still a vital force. If creating the ornamental garden wasn’t enough, in 2000 she embarked on a 35-acre wetlands project to restore five acres of swampland that connects the garden to the Hauraki Gulf.
Photography by Ingalls Photography.
To train her eye, Beverley visited important gardens in England over the years. In turn, her own garden began to draw attention. The late Christopher Lloyd, of Great Dixter in England, was a regular visitor to Ayrlies, and it is a favorite of Dan Hinkley, one of America’s great plantsmen.
Beverley McConnell has written a very personal and beautiful book on the making of the garden, with “before” pictures that show how vision and determination can transform a property. You can order a copy of Ayrlies for $125.71 which includes postage to North America (for New Zealanders, the cost is $69.95).
Above: Tall papyrus grows along the edges of the water features.
Ayrlies is now open to the public; for visitor information, head here.
Read about other women devoted to their gardens in A Parisian Stylist in Provence, At Home With Canada’s Favorite Garden Writer, and Helen Dillon’s Garden in Dublin.
N.B.: This post was published August 12, 2014; it has been updated with new prices and links.
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