Blenheim siblings Wendy and Ross Palmer have restored a cottage garden into a woodland wonderland, with a goal to delight and immerse visitors within the beauty of nature. Eliza’s Garden Cottage will be showcased at the Garden Marlborough Festival for the first time this spring.

Words Sara Faull,  Photos Juliet Nicholas 

Wendy Palmer is firmly of the opinion that the joy of gardening rests within each gardener’s unique creativity and that every garden should be a planting ‘playground’. A natural space to experiment, implement, nurture and observe. ‘The best gardens to me, are those in which you glimpse the gardener’s soul,’ she says.

In that case, Wendy (a seasoned gardener) and her brother Ross Palmer (a renowned garden designer), who both come from a family of gardeners and who have collaborated on both the gardens at Welton House and Eliza’s Garden Cottage in Marlborough, have verdant souls with much to express. A mere glimpse would not be enough!

‘Our gardens are really just what pleases Ross and me,’ Wendy says. ‘However, we are constantly evolving, and sustainability, which has been a big part of our lives for decades, influences our style tremendously.’ 

Both Welton House and Eliza’s Garden Cottage (which offers luxury rental accommodation in a three-bedroom cottage, set in a half-hectare/one-acre garden) are surrounded by vineyards, yet are a mere five minutes’ drive from Blenheim.

Wendy describes both gardens as naturalistic, with plenty of opportunities for wildlife. ‘It is a form of gardening that looks almost as if the garden is on the cusp of collapse, so it is a complex dynamic,’ she explains. ‘Neat and tidy has its place, but for Ross and me, it will be limited to certain very defined areas. For us, “Food Production” and “Wildlife Haven” take the most prominent place in our hierarchy of needs,’ she cites, with both wit and wisdom.

Wendy bought Eliza’s Garden Cottage (named after nurserywoman Elizabeth March) eight years after acquiring Welton House. Even though the gardens are close to each other, in terms of soil there is a vast difference and Eliza’s genius loci, or ‘spirit of the place’ as Wendy describes it, gave the siblings opportunities to nurture different species. Initially, there were a number of challenges in restoring the garden, beginning with a forest of camelias that were steadily smothering every other plant. ‘Working out what lay beyond and beneath the camelia jungle required a slow and patient edit,’ she remembers. Mature trees needed significant arborist attention and an overgrown hedge that sheltered the garden from the prevailing norwesterly wind had to be so severely cut back that its ugly rawness had to be endured as an eyesore, for some years. ‘But with every rude chainsaw intervention, I could see the garden’s future magnificence,’ Wendy recalls excitedly.

And a large part of that magnificence is now a woodland wonderland that offers up seasonal viewing specialities. ‘The woodland is at its prettiest in spring, which coincides nicely with Garden Marlborough,’ this garden lover advises. ‘Using Ross’s extraordinary plant knowledge and succession planting that is his signature gift, we have an extended spring,’ Wendy reveals.

Wendy Palmer’s top tips for being a great host 

I’m a great believer in honouring guests and it seems that a generosity of spirit in everything pleases nearly everyone. For example, provide plenty of glasses, crockery, cutlery, etc. for guests. Good knives are important.

Resist cheap brands if at all possible. Luxury items like quality bedding, bed linen, towels, etc. are worth it. Somehow, when it is a luxury item, everyone feels spoilt. And, per person, if you do the maths, it is not much more of a cost outlay.

If you cannot greet your guest in person, then a personalised note to welcome them is always appreciated, as is a gift such as a bottle of wine or something home-made.

Guests simply adore fresh flowers from the garden in every room. We get endless compliments from this.

I love cooking, so freshly home-baked bread, nut and seed granola, jams, jellies and other delights always make every guest feel special.

Attention to detail makes the difference. We supply books and magazines to read. The newspaper is delivered. A bottle of Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc to taste. Small, personalised and thoughtful touches are what bring big rewards. These touches are what make guests want to return again and again.

‘Using Ross’s extraordinary plant knowledge and succession planting that is his signature gift, we have an extended spring.’

‘Bulbs – a parade of crocus, daffodils, narcissus, tulips and a blanket of bluebells signal the spring before early flowering lilies (martagons) join in the party. In October through to November, it is an extravaganza of blooming, mature rhododendrons. Summer in the woodland is the domain of the three-metre-tall Giant Nepalese lilies (Cardiocrinum giganteum) and by Christmas, the woodland garden becomes a peaceful green oasis of ferns, pongas and hostas, where the glade is a restful retreat from Marlborough’s hot summers,’ Wendy details.

As for the remainder of the garden, a spacious, lush, long lawn is a feature for guests to enjoy and families to play games on, with various seating areas for visitors to savour sun or shade and views over the vineyard and the changing light on the ranges that surround the Wairau Valley. ‘Overridingly, we want to immerse our visitors within the garden and nature,’ Wendy affirms.

Guests to the three-bedroom cottage can forage vegetables like asparagus in the spring while the smell of citrus flowers, daphne and hybrid tea roses scent the air. In the summer, there’s a kidney-shaped pool to relax in and the fragrant lemony scent of the enormous San Pedro cacti flowers to inhale, lilies to admire and many unusual perennials flowering in every bed. 

By late summer, apples and figs are begging to be picked and sampled and in autumn the vines and fruit trees are laden. Visitors are always invited to pick and taste whatever bounty the garden offers up, while they are accommodated at Eliza’s Cottage. It is a building rooted in classic 1960s architecture, with large picture windows in every room that provide panoramic vineyard views. Wendy was grateful for these but stripped the house to its bare bones to create an open-plan kitchen, living and dining area and ameliorating the indoor-outdoor flow with a generous sliding door opening onto the pool terrace and garden. Painting, recarpeting, insulation, curtains and heating fashioned the house into a first-class hosting facility.

The interior design is a mix of upcycled treasures and bargain finds, such as the dining table, a rimu chest of drawers and a lovely roll-top desk. Extensive bookshelves in the living area have been ‘colonised’ with an eclectic collection of vases from op shops and Trade Me and the mirrors are mostly second-hand bargains that Wendy has painted and restored herself.

 

The house feels much more like a home than paid accommodation, thanks to the attention to detail that Wendy and her helpers extend to every guest.

When I ask Wendy what has brought her the most joy in revitalising both the garden and the cottage, she replies that it is a long list. ‘Oh my goodness … healthy, beautiful plants. An aesthetic that pleases us. Tūīs nesting in the garden and pīwakawaka delighting our guests.’ It is the sharing of this joy with visitors, enabling them a full, immersive stay in a crafted, natural place where sustainable practices are at the fore that thrills her the most.

Wendy also speaks of the ephemeral nature of gardens, how change is a constant and how much nature has to teach us. ‘Plants talk to those of us who study them closely. They tell us about our nurturing of them, they reveal climate changes. They tell us whether they are happy or not and if they are truly unhappy, they die quickly,’ she warns. From climatic conditions to the changes in the seasons and even to the way plants and trees affect those around them, all is fleeting and transient in nature. Being in the garden is witnessing a moment in time. ‘There is the light of the moment when you view a particular plant or garden. It can be just for a few seconds that you glimpse that beauty. It is yours alone, even when you are in a crowd. And as a gardener of many decades it is impossible not to feel gratitude in being gifted that moment. It is perhaps in part the foresight and generosity of those long-gone planters of trees and shrubs that gift us an intimate connection to those individuals and to the landscape we have shared. It is a very rich part of everyday life,’ she shares.

If, as Audrey Hepburn said, ‘To plant a garden is to dream of tomorrow’, then Wendy and Ross Palmer have grounded that dream in a deep-rooted reality. Both are firmly entrenched in kaitiakitanga, guardianship, protection and stewardship of our natural world.

‘We, too, are ephemeral and it is our life mission to leave places not just better, but much, much better than we first encountered them. This, ultimately, is the raison d’être for both Ross and me.’ And how lucky are we that these generous, enlightened  and expert gardening siblings are prepared to share.

Eliza’s Garden Cottage is part of Garden Marlborough, which runs from 6–9 November, 2025.