Longbush Cottage Garden

Nestled in the rolling hills of New Zealand’s Wairarapa, Longbush Cottage is a living testament to what happens when vision meets patience. The 1890s cottage itself has travelled — originally built in Eketahuna, it was carefully moved across paddocks and farm gates to its current home in 1998. When Luke Gardner arrived in 2015, the grounds were little more than open pasture, a blank canvas of grass and sky. Today, after a decade of inspired cultivation, that canvas has bloomed into a mosaic of themed garden rooms, each with its own mood and character.

The gardens draw from the arts and crafts tradition, with formal bones — straight lines and deliberate vistas — softened by relaxed, sometimes playfully wild planting. Luke blends indigenous and exotic species to give the landscape a distinctly New Zealand flavour. From the bold crescendo of the Lipstick Garden to the elegant dusky tones of the Pinot Noir Garden, every turn reveals a new tableau. In spring, peony borders flanked with lavender hum with bees; in autumn, the changing light paints the garden rooms in amber and gold.