Blue House Amberley

This is a garden where strong design and a plant woman’s passion go hand in hand. It is a garden that invites you to wander, explore and relax, with plenty of places to sit, and new delights around every corner.
Our wide grass paths take you from intimate and cool shade gardens, to sweeps of tussocks and prairie flowers, and through Mediterranean-inspired gravel gardens, featuring stunning succulents and aloes. From generous sunny borders filled with unusual and difficult-to-source perennials to an iris-filled damp garden.
We have a gorgeous no-mow meadow, vineyard and charming and productive vegetable garden. Tiny paths meander through arched hedges and down to the creek. There is a warm and sheltered pergola area for you to enjoy the garden. You cannot tell from the healthy and lush planting, but we are almost exclusively a summer-dry garden (no irrigation apart from rainfall). We achieve this through quite specialised planting and cultivation techniques, including no-dig, bare rooting of plants, no soil amendments and woodchip mulch among other things. We are always happy to chat with visitors about our unique gardening techniques. But if this doesn’t interest you, the garden is a stunning example of planting design, which is constantly evolving.

You can follow the garden on face book Blue House Amberley, or
Instagram bluehouse_amberley

Jenny Cooper is one of New Zealand’s best-known illustrators of books for children. She works from home, which is how she maintains such a large and complex garden. This garden is only 9 years old but the excellent sandy loam has created remarkable growth in this short time. Jenny practises ‘slow’ gardening, or summer-dry  gardening, trying to match the planting choices and design to this low rainfall environment. This has led to an enormous and experimental plant palette, as Jenny learns how to create a beautiful garden with limited time and rainfall.
Chris works as a landscaper and builder and Jenny is forever grateful for his input into the now-finished house and the various garden projects.

Our garden is 4600 m2 or 1 ¼ acres. Depending on your interest in gardens, allow from 1 – 2 hours. Jenny takes time to chat with every visitor.

The Hurunui District has many attractions, including wineries and cycle tracks. Amberley has a great Saturday farmer’s market, fabulous cafes like The Little Vintage Café, The Paris café and The Nor’Wester, and wonderful shops such as Ruby Six.