Jottings

  

                            

       Tigers Nest, Bhutan                                     Young Buddist monks

A SENSE OF PLACE
You can encounter some difficult situations when you seek the soul of a landscape. You can find yourself clinging to cliffsides, knowing you must not look down; you may walk on top of the world, but wonder how on earth you will safely descend. You’ll sleep in uncomfortable locations in your search for a mountain valley that is a botanical masterpiece. You’ll confront crocodile warnings, and tread on snakes. Or, you might find yourself enveloped in a misted dawn, on a verandah canterlivered over a ravine, accompanied by nothing more dangerous than a mug of hot tea.

We can perhaps blame any quest for unique experiences on the poet Alexander Pope who wrote to his patron, Lord Burlington, Consult the genius loci, the spirit of the place in everything. Since that admonishment entered the public imagination, almost three centuries ago, people have taken risks to tread first in pristine places, among wildernesses where man has not trifled with nature.

There are many such places in Australia. Nowhere is the ‘genius of place’ more intense than in Tasmania’s Great Western Tiers (see picture below left). There, you can trek prepared trails, or climb peaks accessed through alpine meadows where the plant material is specific to a minute area.

 You don’t need to climb mountains, however, to appreciate the design success of nature when left well alone. You only have to pull off the highway when driving through this country to inhale the scent of the native vegetation; to marvel at the light, and feast on the sight of cattle resting in the shade of a magnificent, ancient eucalypt (see picture of Jugiong, below right). Walk the Larapinta Trail in the West MacDonnell Ranges, in Central Australia to gaze on ancient ghost gums (Corymbia papuana) and to understand why Albert Namatjira loved that landscape.

 Travel to the top end of the country and you’ll find drifts of coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) leaning laconically toward the opal-toned water and shading a sweep of sparkling white sand. Nothing typifies the tropics more than this palm, which is native to a wide range of regions that border the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.

What were the qualities of the architect Andrea Palladio’s buildings in the northern Italian city of Vicenza, that so moved Pope and his colleagues? Palladio’s stripped-down buildings of perfect proportions, along classical Roman lines, have influenced architecture (and landscape architecture) the world over. The city became a mecca for the English -  including William Kent, Inigo Jones, and Lord Burlington, often dubbed the Architect Earl – who, in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, on their Grand Tour of the Continent, rested at Vicenza to study the refined perfection of Palladio’s work.

 Exalting in these buildings, which are honest to their environment, to the climate and the light in which they were imagined, the city remains a living metaphor for dignity, restraint and elegance.

You couldn’t imagine the great buildings of Sydney’s Macquarie Street achieving such beauty if constructed in any material but the local sandstone. They would surely mock if built, for instance, in the marble that is local to India and that ensures the palaces of Rajasthan are such shimmering treasures.

So, how does the gardener translate this principle to create a sure sense of location, or, at least, ensure that he does not destroy the integrity of a landscape he has purchased. He would do well to start with a central theme of the Arts and Crafts movement: ‘truth to materials’. Create hard surfaces from local materials to ensure that a clear local character is conserved. Walls built in local stone seem to have risen from the soil, to remain integral with the land.

While garden making is an art form, and is, therefore, the imposition of the artist’s will upon his canvas, successful gardens rest comfortably in their location and in their climate. There is perhaps nothing so moving as seeing a native tree, left to grow to its full height; to spread as it pleases. It is hard to imagine a garden in Italy without pencil pines (Cupressus sempervirens), often meandering in a laconic trail across a low hill.

As someone has already said, while it is difficult to articulate exactly what it is that provides a poignant sense of place, you’ll know it when you find it. And you’ll know we must treasure and protect our precious places. GO TO MY TRAVEL PAGE FOR DETAILS OF MY TOUR TO THE VILLAS AND GARDENS OF VICENZA: MAY 2011

OTAHUNA LODGE, NEW ZEALAND

The beauty of New Zealand is evident as you fly into Christchurch, on the east coast of the south island. The Port Hills drop dramatically into Lyttelton Harbour - after Sydney’s the deepest natural harbour in the world, and the erupted cone of an ancient volcano. The Canterbury Plains then stretch to the Southern Alps, which remain snow-covered for much of the year.

Otahuna Lodge lies in its own valley, some 20 minutes from Christchurch. For 60 years the home of the politician, lawyer and philanthropist, Sir Heaton Rhodes and his wife Jessie (the sister of the Australian daffodil and rose breeder, Alister Clark), Otahuna was built in 1895. Rhodes farmed and gardened there, on some 2500 hectares, until his death in 1956. You can visit the gardens, and see the stunning fields of daffodills, on Sunday 12th September, 2010, when the gates are opened for charity.

 After several incarnations the property was bought, in 2006, by Americans Hall Cannon and Miles Refo; it is now restored, and has opened as the most luxurious of retreats, already lauded for its cuisine and its supremely elegant, but comfy, country-house décor. Today 12 hectares of gardens, woodlands, orchards and picking borders have been reclaimed, and a half-hectare, walled vegetable garden created to supply the dining room with its requirements. Over 75 different vegetables, 25 varieties of herbs and 25 of fruit are grown. 
The vegetable garden is divided into four squares, each of which is broken again into four, both for crop rotation and for ease of access and maintenance. Height is provided by a central pergola built from a pine cut from the property and by a tall wooden obelisk at the centre of each quarter; they support peas and beans, planted in early winter for spring harvest.  

Nearby, in the woodland, the acid soil hosts a collection of rhododendron, now flourishing after extensive tree surgery. Mature beech, giant redwoods, and maples shade new plantings of New Zealand natives, including the endemic toothed lancewood (Pseudopanax ferox). In the dappled light, the ground is now carpeted with Chatham Island forget-me-not, trilliums, erythroniums, the giant Himalyan lily (Cardiocrinum giganteum), and damp-loving rodgersias. 

Paths, softened with fallen oak leaves and edged with periwinkle (Vinca major), which acts as a fire retardant, lead to a series of glades. There, a selection among the 130 ferns that are native to New Zealand creates lacy shadows. Tree ferns, including Dicksonia squarrosa and D.  fibrosa as well as the katote (Cyathea smithii) and the silver tree fern (C. dealbata) make flickering patterns on the paved clearing that surrounds the newly renovated frog pond. Don't miss the daffodill weekend in early September!

Phone Otahuna Lodge on +64 3 329 6333 or email enquiries@otahuna.co.nz. Visit www.otahuna.co.nz

                     


I feel sure that gardening is an activity that will never fall from grace, no matter how difficult climate change, drought, water restrictions, changing lifestyles and economic turmoil may make it, because gardening, the purest and simplest of the great pleasures, brings some clarity to the meaning of life.  

BUY A ROSE!
You can  assist the life-saving work of the Australian obstetrician, Dr Catherine Hamlin, AC, and help celebrate the fiftieth year Golden Jubilee of her (May 1959) arrival in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by purchasing a rose. During 2010 English rose breeder David Austin, and the growers of his roses throughout Australia, will donate part of the proceeds from the sale of each ‘Golden Celebration’ rose (pictured, above right) to Catherine Hamlin’s Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa. Garden lovers will see a special label on the rose when they purchase ‘Golden Celebration’.

David Austin’s English Roses, well known to Australian gardeners, combine the voluptuous forms and fragrances of old fashioned roses with the repeat flowering of modern roses. They are healthy, reliable and easy to grow. Bred in 1992, ‘Golden Celebration’ is a magnificent shrub rose with giant, richly scented blooms. The fragrance is based on tea with hints of strawberries and sweet white wine. 

Ethiopia has a population of almost 80 million people, 85% of whom live in rural areas.  Transport and access is poor: many villages are a two-day walk from a road, and 95% of births take place without a medically trained person in attendance.  

Catherine Hamlin and her late husband, Dr Reg Hamlin, arrived in Ethiopia in 1959.  For the last 50 years Dr Hamlin has dedicated her life to helping women in Ethiopia who suffer from obstetric fistula. This devastating injury is caused by a prolonged, obstructed, agonising childbirth. Without medical help after the birth, these women experience a lifetime of incontinence, which leads to social ostracism and destitution.

The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, opened in 1974, remains the only hospital in the world solely dedicated to the treatment of women with obstetric fistulae.  Over 32,000 women have been treated with a 92% success rate.  All of the women who come to the Hospital are destitute, and so are treated free of charge.  As the Ethiopian Government does not have the resources to support the Hospital, it relies on donations from overseas to fund its life-restoring work. Registered charitable foundations which specifically raise money to pay for the work of the Hospital operate in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Japan.    

Dr Hamlin is 84 years of age, but has no plans to retire. She has been awarded Australia’s highest honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia.  She was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 1999, and has received 20 national and internationally recognised awards for her wonderful work.  

In her book, The Hospital by the River, Catherine Hamlin writes movingly of a typical young woman: “Most likely she spends the rest of her life in misery. But occasionally her story ends with joy: somehow she hears about the hospital. Somehow she begs the fare or persuades a relative to take her on the long, frightening journey to the unimaginable confusion of the capital. The hospital is quiet and clean, set amongst flowers. People treat her with kindness. ….and the miracle she had hardly dared to believe in happens. After a time she returns home, cured, to begin life anew…..”

Over the last few years the Hospital has established four regional outreach fistula centres and a midwifery training college so that more rural women can have access to treatment and medically assisted childbirth. 

Dr Hamlin places great importance on the hospital’s beautiful gardens as crucial to the healing process.  She writes, “I am sure the gardens add to the joy our patients have – it is a healing influence on their minds especially; to feel there is at last beauty and love around them after their months or years of ostracism and loneliness!  So, our gardens play a big part in our work and bring joy not only to the patients, but to our staff as well.”

Many of us know that when the tragedy of the loss of a baby befalls one in this country, one is surrounded by a loving and supportive family, along with the very best of counselling and medical care. How different for these poor women – often very young teenage brides - in Ethiopia. Please help us by spreading the word about this promotion and the healing power of the garden!

For further information and media assistance:

Holly Kerr Forsyth: 0411 88 77 48, or holly@hollyforsyth.com.au  see also www.fistulatrust.org