The Oystercatcher's Cottage, with it’s driftwood paling fence, cheerfully orange back door and flotsam and jetsam garden features must be one of the country’s sweetest little holiday cottages but it’s rivaled for cuteness by the glasshouse next door. Both structures are the work of Emily and Mitch who have mix-and-matched found and donated materials with quirky flotsam and jetsam from the beaches of Bluff to create the cosy and snug pairing of an unforgettable crib and glasshouse that make you want to settle in to both – the cottage for a few days of nautically imbued relaxation and the glasshouse just for the pleasure of soaking up the atmosphere of crafty-art combined with happy horticulture.
I visited the recycled windows glasshouse while the architect/builders were away, perhaps combing the beaches in search of knobs of driftwood like the one that serves as a latch on the door, or washed-across-the-ocean-to-our-shores buoys, baskets or bins that could contain more of the lettuces, tomatoes or basil that grow in there now.
I took photos, smelled the basil (I love the aroma of basil!), lifted the leaves of the strawberries for a look (good crop!) and stood on the dinky little bright yellow articulated digger that I guessed belongs to their young son, Archie. I hope they’ll be able to straighten that out before he notices. The sandy path that runs down between the growing indoor crops must be his foul-weather sand-pit.
There may be more cheerful glasshouses than this somewhere in the world, but I’d be surprised to be shown one. If ‘happy feelings’ were a crop, this one'd be growing a bumper.
Emily, Archie and Mitch's glasshouse has become a modest but significant benchmark in my experience of glasshouses and has inspired me to search out others of its ilk. I welcome photos of any happy glass-homes that you know of. I’d like to visit them, stand, sit or crouch in them and see how they compare with the beauty from Bluff.
5 comments:
My father built a huge glass house that grew masses of tomatoes and watermelons of all things, they were the best (and biggest) watermelons I have seen to date. It then became a sphagnum moss drying area and was also the best sand pit my bother and I could have ever wanted (all weather). It is where I learned to love dirt!!
brother, I meant brother.
(he's no bother)
You haven't a photo of it have you Shunda?
I'd do a story for the NZ Gardener if I could.
I've some outrageous stories about glasshouses from my youth that I'd share over a cider...
The tear gas games were crazy but there is worse!
I can get a photo if you want me to, it currently has a grape vine in it and thousands of native plant seedlings.
The olds are no longer living there but a family member is until the property sells.
It is split level and built of imported old growth American Oregon from my Grandfather (who helped build it).
Thanks for your post Robert, it reminded me of many fond memories.
I've an impressive stack of wooden framed windows here, waiting to be rearranged into the form of a glasshouse and I do mean the stack is impressive - I've enough to build a house the size of .. a house!
One of the windows in particular will take 6 men to move to the location (as yet un specified).
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