When Penny and John Zino bought North Canterbury’s Flaxmere farm in 1966, farming was the dream. A fruitful, sprawling garden was the furthest thing from their minds…
This story was first told Sage Vol. 1: Life among plants
In the beginning, John and Penny Zino’s sole plans at Flaxmere revolved around farming. The problem was their 1890s house, surrounded by rampant trees, Prunus suckers, ivy, periwinkle and twitch, had only one hour of sunlight per day. Action was needed.
Penny was taking that action within months – charging her brother with bulldozing macrocarpas, pine trees and willows. Once everything was cleared, she discovered a group of oak trees, one Lawson cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana) and two walnut trees – the seed of what would become the garden at Flaxmere.
— Read the full story in Sage Vol. 1: Life among plants
