Blue House Amberley

Blue House Amberley Love for all things plantish 😊🌿
Experiments in dry gardening🌵
Friends with mycorrhizae 🍄. Specializing in naturalistic planting design.

Open November - April, $15 we provide a map and Jenny loves to talk with visitors. Blue House Amberley is an open garden in North Canterbury. It is gardened by Jenny Cooper, with able help from partner Chris Raateland. We are in the Hurunui Garden Festival, check out www.hurunuigardenfestival.com
This is a garden where strong design and a plants woman’s passion go hand in hand. It is a garden tha

t 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
We also provide a map and information about our garden philosophy, honed in the difficult North Canterbury climate. This includes no-dig, bare rooting, limited feeding and encouragement of mycorrhizal fungi. Instagram: bluehouse_amberley
www.bluehouseamberley.nz for details about the garden and how to visit.

Some more bits and bobs from high summer.It is comforting to look at these pics because at the moment the garden looks p...
27/08/2026

Some more bits and bobs from high summer.

It is comforting to look at these pics because at the moment the garden looks pretty bare! Plenty of empty spaces and I can't remember if anything is there?

I popped in a photo from last week, after the big chop in the grass border, and then mulching with woodchip. Please ignore the unsightly white grape netting. Black birds love fresh mulch! Ugly, much. No Ai generated images here lol.

Here are a few more finds from my out-of-control photo library from last summer. I forget how lovely a garden is in summ...
25/08/2026

Here are a few more finds from my out-of-control photo library from last summer. I forget how lovely a garden is in summer, as I've been staring at sticks for the last few months. These were all taken in high summer, before the real dry began, as you can tell from the green lawn.
Before I know it we'll be back there again, altho there have been some changes in the garden since then. But more about that later.

Feeling slightly panicky as the Hurunui Garden Festival is only 2 months away and the garden opens in one month!!! But it will be lovely to have visitors back in the garden again 🥰

We had a bit of a sad summer this year, with a family illness (fingers crossed we look like having a happy ending there ...
20/08/2026

We had a bit of a sad summer this year, with a family illness (fingers crossed we look like having a happy ending there 🥰) but I completely stopped posting on social media.

But I didn't stop photographing! Hence, now in late winter, I have hmmmm let me see, about 574,937 photos from summer, to sort through.

I took all these photos for a reason. I just can't remember what that reason was.

So I'm just going to b**g up a few that I like, so that I can cross them off the list . (The list, the list, oh that terrible list! Even when life falls to pieces around you, the list persists)

Yes the garden will be open this summer (3 October, to be exact!) and yes the garden will be in the Rodin Cars Hurunui Garden Festival, along with 23 other lovely gardens and historic homesteads.

After months of hardly engaging with the garden at all, there it was, quietly waiting for me, still lovely after months of neglect. It turns out it doesn't really need me at all! I'll file that under important lessons learned 😍

Hurunui Garden Festival
bluehouseamberley.nz

13/08/2026

Snow from a few days ago. Such a nice little winter interlude. We couldn't work so spent the day by the fire, reading our books and looking out the window. It felt like a day off school 😆😆😆❄️❄️❄️

I warn you now, these photos are all almost exactly the same! This little patch of gravel garden obsesses me, in winter....
13/08/2026

I warn you now, these photos are all almost exactly the same!

This little patch of gravel garden obsesses me, in winter.

Euphorbia rigida, euphorbia myrsinites, euphorbia pithyusa (thank you ), one lovely grass and a touch of sunlight.

I took over 40 photos. Please be impressed by the enormous restraint needed to get that down to 6 photos 🤣🤣🤣

So spare, so beautiful! Winter quiet, hardly any colour, lovely bobbly forms, and just a hint of spring....
13/08/2026

So spare, so beautiful! Winter quiet, hardly any colour, lovely bobbly forms, and just a hint of spring....

No need to say anything, the colour speaks for itself 🥰🥰🥰
10/05/2026

No need to say anything, the colour speaks for itself 🥰🥰🥰

Address

35 Willowside Place
Amberley

Telephone

+64212589511

Website

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