Lovers of the romantic will be hooked on the folly in a Southland garden, says Gillian Vine.
A folly is not what you'd expect to find in a New Zealand garden, but not only does Annie Close have one, her husband Greg built it.
Defined as architectural constructions which are not what they first appear to be, follies reached their zenith in England in the 18th century.
They often were built to look like ruins and Annie's design followed this concept, although it's a fair bet no English folly was ever made of broken-up concrete from a cow byre.
Resembling a ruined chapel, the folly is proving popular with couples who want a romantic wedding venue.
They can get married in the real thing, too, for Annie and Greg have restored Stirling's former St Mary's Anglican church. Around the 1869 church Greg has built drystone walls, using 75 tonnes of rocks.
''He taught himself [walling] and he's just got better and better,'' Annie says with understandable pride.
She designed ''a whole new garden in front of the church'', choosing lime green and purple as the theme colours.
For purple, she grew Standard Burgundy Iceberg roses for height, with Blackberry Nip underneath and low-growing Alchemilla mollis for lime-green accents.
Like the church, Argyle Cottage is more than a century old and is surrounded by an appropriately old-style garden.
From heritage roses such as Albertine by the house to delphiniums and other perennials, honeywort, paeonies, clematis, orange ball buddleia (Buddleia globosa), Japanese roses (Kerria japonica), bearded irises and star of Bethlehem, much of it is reminiscent of cottage gardens of a century ago.
Thousands of old bricks - ''We carted an awful lot of bricks,'' Annie recalls - have been used for paths and walls in this part of the garden and in an idea worth copying, a very dry area under a conifer has been bricked over and just a few succulents used for colour.
There is lots more in the 1.6ha garden, at Waianiwa, just off the Wallacetown-Riverton highway, 17km from Invercargill.
There are lots of shrubs, particularly spring-flowering varieties. Azaleas have a dell of their own, while by the pond, geese stroll past Californian lilac (Ceanothus), Mexican orange (Choisya) and a quince.
Among all the trees, shrubs and flowers, an oak tree may be missed but it has a charming story. When Annie and Greg's second son, Luke, was born, their older boy, James, picked up an acorn from outside the maternity home.
He planted it and the tree was kept in a pot until the Closes bought Argyle Cottage in 1996. In its permanent home, the tree flourished and produced its first acorn when Luke turned 25, the year his first child was born.
The garden is open by appointment and, as expected, visitor numbers peak in spring and summer ''but I have had some winter visitors and that has really surprised me'', Annie says, adding they have tended to be people from out of the area ''keen to have a look at what we've done''.
One can't blame them.
See it
Argyle Cottage Garden (www.argylecottagegarden.co.nz) is one of almost 20 properties in the Southland Open Gardens scheme. The garden is open only by appointment; phone (03) 235-2677 or email annie@argylecottagegarden.co.nz to book a visit. Admission is $5 for adults (primary school children free), car parking is available and there is disabled access. For the full list of Southland's open gardens, see www.southlandgardens.co.nz.
