03 Magazine: December 08, 2023

Feature | Magazine 51
A secret garden
The first in a series of extracts from gorgeous new gardening tome
Secret Gardens of Aotearoa, we travel to Central Otago’s lake district to see the magic
Ali Soper has worked on a very special 113-year-old former sheep station.
Nestled into the gentle eastern slopes of Mount Maude,
just south of Lake Hāwea in Central Otago’s lakes
district, is Crosshill, an established garden set among centuryold
trees. The massive native beech, birch and flowering
cherry trees stand as a testament to the foresight of the
property’s first gardeners.
Crosshill was established as a sheep station in one of the
area’s early agricultural settlements; the original woolshed now
serves as the potting shed and flower-drying area.
Between the rocky under-bed of its mountainous setting
and pockets of rich, fertile soil redolent of its farming days,
the range of the garden’s soil is as extreme as the Central
Otago seasons.
This is both the coldest and driest region of New Zealand,
with hot summers and harsh winters. Early Māori primarily
occupied the area seasonally by way of routes through the
Nevis Valley from the south and the Clutha River from
the north.
ABOUT THE GARDEN
Crosshill is an eclectic garden that includes the original rose
garden, an orchard that is being transformed into a food
forest, a newly created woodland garden, a propagation and
potting shed, a picking garden for the roadside flower stall, a
tea garden and an extensive vegetable garden.
It’s quite a new project for Ali – she and [husband] Nic
bought Crosshill in 2020 – and her vision is still evolving,
guided by her interest in history and observations of the site.
She takes time to be in the garden, to notice what is growing
where, and to plan from there.
Nic is always on hand – often with his tractor, ‘Blue’ –
prepared to drop whatever he’s doing to help Ali realise her
vision. They have banned sprays and replaced much of the
grass with productive plants to feed the soil and their family.
The original double-gabled homestead was built around
1910. A century on, deteriorated beyond repair, it was
provided to the local fire brigade to be burnt to the ground in
a training exercise. At the same time the surrounding gardens
were largely cleared, with the exception of a rose garden
at the front of the house and the magnificent mature trees
planted by the home’s first owners. The native beech, copper
beech, elderberry and liquidambar, as well as heritage plums,
apples and cherries, survived to provide a sense of grandeur
and structure for Ali’s new vision for Crosshill. She suspects
the rose garden was planted around the same time as the
trees, and its original paved walkway connects her to these
gardeners of long ago.
Kānuka and mānuka dotting the old sheep paddocks hint at
what grew here before the land was cleared for agriculture.
In the late nineteenth century the Crown agreed to restore
the land rights to Ngāi Tahu, but the legislation was revoked
in 1909 and the area was divided up for colonial agricultural
settlement. Named after Kati Hāwea, one of the earliest tribes
to occupy the South Island, Lake Hāwea supported seasonal
food resources for Māori, with numerous kāinga mahinga kai
(food-gathering places) and kāinga nōhoanga (settlements)
established around the lake. Edible plants included kāuru
(cabbage tree root), aruhe (bracken fernroot), and māra
(gardens) of potato and turnip.
The hot, dry Central Otago summers facilitate a vegetablegrowing
season that is short, sharp and productive. Everpassionate
about growing food, Ali’s vegetable garden and
adjacent propagation and potting shed are central to Crosshill.
She grows what she and Nic like to eat – brassicas, peas,
cavolo nero (which grows exceptionally well), silverbeet,
potatoes, leeks and carrots. The vegetable beds are fed with
Ali’s own compost, and dotted around the garden are small
fencing-wire bins for collecting weeds as she works. These
self-compost in situ and the contents are returned to the soil
over time.