There are 12,000 tulips waiting beneath the soil at Ayrburn. By spring, they will have risen through garden beds across the estate, joined by snowdrops and bluebells around The Dell, daffodils, crocus and grape hyacinths framing the heritage trees, and an entire terrace of tulips bringing the flower farm emphatically back to life. It is a spectacular seasonal shift, but at Ayrburn the gardens are never simply background. Increasingly, they are part of the reason people come.
Few hospitality destinations in New Zealand devote this level of attention to their gardens, and fewer still have allowed them to become so integral to the experience. At Ayrburn, the landscape is as carefully considered as the restaurants, bars and historic buildings it connects, with planting that changes constantly through the year while preserving the character of land that was already remarkable long before its redevelopment.
That history remains visible in the extraordinary mature trees that punctuate the estate, some more than 160 years old. During Ayrburn’s development, these were retained and worked around, giving the gardens a sense of permanence that newly established landscapes rarely possess. Around them, Head Gardener Greg Thoms and his team have been building the next chapter.
Thoms has been at Ayrburn since the beginning, charged with realising a landscape originally designed by George Watts with, as he puts it, “the ultimate vision to create one of the finest gardens in the world.” The original plan remains intact, although hardly static. New beds are regularly introduced, views softened and planting expanded as Ayrburn itself develops. “For such young gardens, it’s been incredible to see how quickly they’ve become such a talking point on a global scale,” says Thoms.
The immaculate result disguises an enormous amount of work. Central Otago delivers winters that can fall to minus 12 degrees and summers reaching into the mid-thirties. The cold helps keep pests and disease at bay and provides exceptional stratification for spring bulbs, while summer brings the gardens into full bloom. More than 270 tubs and pots are replanted each season; lawns are renovated twice annually and mown two or three times a week throughout summer; and maintenance is typically planned three to six months ahead. “The tasks are many and always varied,” says Thoms, “but always completed with the utmost care and attention to detail.”
It is clearly a labour of love, but these gardens also work for their living. One glasshouse produces what Thoms describes as a “never-ending supply” of basil, herbs and tomatoes, much of it destined directly for Ayrburn’s bars and restaurants. Six varieties of mint grow alongside three types of parsley, dill, rosemary, thyme and chives, while additional tomatoes are raised in tunnel houses for The Woolshed and The Bakehouse. Thoms also works with Woolshed Head Chef Josh Harris, trialling new and heirloom tomato varieties for the kitchen.
Flowers follow much the same path. “All the flowers that you see in the venues are grown on site,” Thoms explains. Seeds are assessed and ordered in winter; propagation begins in September, and seedlings are planted at the flower farm once the late frosts have passed. Sweet peas, zinnias, cosmos, scabiosa, amaranthus and helichrysum flourish, alongside more than 20 sweet pea varieties and upwards of 24 hydrangeas. The flower farm is where Thoms allows himself the greatest freedom, describing it as “a space where I can let rip and plant everything I feel encapsulates Ayrburn.” And there is no poor season in which to see it. Winter reveals the formal bones of topiary and buxus against those magnificent old trees. Spring arrives in waves of bulbs. Summer is roses, hydrangeas, overflowing pots and the flower farm at its most abundant, before autumn turns the estate through yellow, orange and deep crimson. Thoms chooses midsummer as his favourite, when the lawns are striped deep green, the hydrangeas carry enormous mop heads, and the weeping willows reach towards the stream. Yet his greatest satisfaction comes from watching visitors arrive “with huge smiles”, captivated by what has been created.
That reaction says much about what Ayrburn has achieved. The gardens may still be young, but they have already become one of the estate’s great calling cards, every bit as memorable as the food, wine and hospitality around them. And, season by season, they are only getting better.
