28 July 2021
A Garden Soft and Subtle
Writer: Carly Thomas
Photographer: Helen Lea Wall
Barewood Garden in Marlborough has been built on the solid foundations of an enduring love, an artist’s eye and a passion-led obsession.
Carolyn Ferraby waits at the entrance of the garden she began creating with her husband, Joe, forty five years ago. She has waited by this little blue gate for hundreds of visitors over the years and she wears a smile that hints at a secret.
When the gate is opened and the visitors walk through, there it is: the moment of pause, the moment of feeling like you have stumbled into something secret and held. It’s a moment Carolyn has cleverly created. “I love magic in the garden,” she says. “The way it reveals itself. It’s like painting a picture except it is never finished.”
The villa at the heart of Barewood was built in 1908. Taken over in the seventies by Joe and Carolyn from Joe's parents, the house and surroundings were a blank canvas. Joe got stuck into the farm and Carolyn got stuck into the garden. It wasn't a grand plan in the beginning, but rather a slow persuasion. "I had to keep asking for more space," says Carolyn, "and I slowly took over paddocks."
Carolyn was in her early twenties; she had trained as a florist and says gardening was an extension of that: "It's all like a big bouquet really, isn't it?" Carolyn's mother died when Carolyn was nine years old, and Carolyn describes her instinct towards gardening as an inherited one. "When I came here, well, that really came out and I found I loved gardening with a passion."
Like the waterfall wisteria that adorns the homestead, Garden Marlborough, an annual showcase of gardens in the Marlborough area, is woven into Barewood's history. "We never planned to open our gardens to the public," says Carolyn. "But it just evolved like that when we found we loved to share it."
Garden Marlborough aligns with the Ferrabys' love for their community, as it raises money for local initiatives and scholarships, and Barewood has become a much-loved highlight over the years. Carolyn was one of the original organisers of the event when it began twenty eight years ago and now she is their patron.
Today, visitors will be seeing the garden at its final stage - what Carolyn describes as "editing". "Forty five years ago I didn't know anything about what I was planting and now I do, so I can reinvent," she says. "It's an adventure, exciting now in a different way."
Around the last corner one more secret is revealed: a potager garden that opens up like a jewel of symmetry. It is here Carolyn pauses in reflection of a life in the garden. "I have had a great lot of fun with it, and haven't I been lucky? To create a garden is a lucky, special and beautiful thing."
Barewood has been a key feature of Rapaura Springs Garden Marlborough's open gardens for the last twenty eight years. Rapaura Springs Garden Marlborough is New Zealand's premier garden showcase. The 2022 event will be held from 3 - 6 November. For more information visit www.gardenmarlborough.co.nz
If you enjoyed this story, please share with someone else.
This story appeared in the Kōanga Spring 2021 Edition of Shepherdess.
Get your hands on a copy.
Related Stories
Ophir
Val Butcher, 81, the postmistress of the country’s oldest continuously running postal service, shares her memories of cold winters and fitting cabbages into postboxes.
“My mother-in-law is my best friend” – how kindness, consideration and respect make this relationship work
German immigrant Jana, mum to three boys, lives and works on the family farm in Te Aroha with her husband Chris and his parents, John and Robyn.
Chat on the Chathams
In this month's column, Greer shares why she and her husband are raising their family in the Chathams