Reinventing the wild

When South Islanders Rosanne and Atholl Anderson moved to Blenheim after 15 years in Canberra, Rosanne had a wishlist for her garden. “I wanted a splash of luxuriant colour in one place, a bit of bush and a big vege garden.”

Originally a farm girl from Ashburton, Rosanne did wonder whether they might utilise the 1ha piece of land by growing pine trees or saffron on it, but a Marlborough District Council initiative, Tui to Town, motivated her to plant native bush.

“Vineyards were proliferating around the area,” Rosanne says. “A monoculture is bad for