This working cottage garden is a delight

Press, 9 January 1986, Page 10

This working cottage garden is a delight

. Betty and Owen Frost’s one-acre garden at Prebbleton is surrounded by good thick windproof hedges which stand bastion-like against assaults by the wind. The old weatherboard cottage is thought to have been built by the original Prebble family, who planted the hedges and grew fruit and vegetables within the shelter. Betty Frost was born in Surrey, in England, where she grew up with a liking for rural life and for the wild flowers which grew in the fields and hedgerows. Several years were spent working at Wisley, where she helped with seed collection and distribution and where her liking for herbs and herbaceous plants developed. After coming with her husband to New Zealand, she began collecting and using the herbs which now form the basis of the garden.

Betty Frost’s gardening interests complement those of her second husband Owen. He is keen on running the garden on organic lines, making it a self-sufficient unit.

At the far end of the garden two goats are kept to provide the household with milk. The surplus milk, together with household scraps, is fed to the pigs which provide meat and bacon for the family. Meat is also provided by the rabbits which thrive on garden weeds. Poultry and eggs are provided by chickens, ducks and turkeys which are let out on foraging expeditions to help clean up garden pests. In addition to the small orchard, Owen Frost grows a small patch of lucerne from which he uses the straw for the animals’ bedding. All the animal manure is composted for the vegetables and flowers, and where possible, attention is given to companion planting.

With the advent of another hive, the Frosts hope to be self-sufficient in honey, which they use in the place of sugar. And they provide all their own fruit and vegetables. The gardens around the house are considered essential features of the whole plan. Flowers and plants are necessary for the bees, but are also a source of considerable, human enjoyment.

Betty sometimes uses the herbs for minor ailments of the family and of the animals. She uses them in cooking, and for fragrance soaps, pot-pourris, and posies which she makes.

The main herb garden is at the front of the cottage, between the verandah and the outside gate which is entered beneath a giant yew hedge. The garden is designed on the ancient, four-fold plan of intersecting paths. Many interesting and beautiful herbs overflow from these beds — sweet woodruff, hyssop, lady’s bedstraw, anise, penny royal, clary, caraway, and gilliflowers are just a few.

The larger, shrubby herbs of the Mediterranean areas are mostly kept separate in another part of the garden. Here southernwoods and wormwoods, comfrey and woad mix with different sages and rosemary. There are many varieties of lavender — “Munstead,” “Hidcote,” “Twice Purple,” pink, white, rabbit-eared and French, together with silver, gold and variegated thymes. Betty Frost has found that giving them a good mulch of decayed oak leaves very much reduces the need for weeding between the plants.

A long border alongside the hedge is backed by oldroses such as William Lobb, Pink Gretendorst, and Moyesii. There is a large “pineapple” broom Cytisus battandieri which Betty grew from seed, and at the very front of the border are old dianthus varieties such as “Sops in Wine” and “John Musgrave,” “Dad’s Favourite” and “Inchmery.” Along the apple walk are

woodland plants and bulbs, fritillaries and crocus, snowdrops and hellebores, apricot coloured foxgloves, and “plum pie” iris. This year Betty has begun a new potager-style salad garden, based on the ideas of the author and gardener, Joy Larkom. Delightful to look at, it contains a host of useful vegetables and herbs, many chosen for their special colours and ar-

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ranged ornamentally. Reminiscent of centuriesold knot-gardens, here grow bergamot and coriander, golden beetroot and asparagus peas, oriental radish and red lettuce, the special red-leaved Empress of India nasturtium and many others laid out in interesting patterns and ready to make colourful salads. Betty and Owen Frost’s garden is a working cottage

garden in the true sense of the term. It is a garden delightful in its simple , beauty, and yet is able to sustain most of the essentials for living. However, the Frosts’ gar- ; den demonstrates another traditional factor which is associated with gardens of' this sort — its delight and interest results from a great deal of consistent effort and hard work. ;