MY LIFE WITH PLANTS: New Zealand, The Giant's House

3 days ago

Words and pictures by Jim Bishop, for Let's Talk Plants! March 2025.

In November of 2024, my partner Scott and I spent 14 days with the Oregon Hardy Plant Society touring the gardens of New Zealand's South Island. In my last blog, I wrote about the last garden on our tour, The Wild Dream Garden. However, one of the gardens that initially sparked my interest in taking the tour was The Giant's Garden. I first discovered this garden in a 2018 blog post on The Paintbox Garden by my friend and enthusiastic garden blogger, Janet Davis. The garden is a display of whimsical and over the top 2- and 3-dimensional mosaic artwork. As a creator, admirer and lover of mosaics from ancient to modern, I knew I must visit this garden.

Mosaic lining the driveway as you approach the house.

The owner and creator of the mosaics is painter, sculptor and imagineer Josie Martin who has been working her magic for over 30 years. The 1881 Italianate house, located in Akaroa on the South Island in New Zealand, was originally named by neighborhood children looking up at the house set atop a steep hill. Perhaps the 'giant' name inspired the artist to create many figures larger than normal human scale.

The majority of the artwork consists of ceramic tiles meticulously arranged to form surreal and frequently oversized figures and animals. Josie is clearly a master of the craft, having produced mosaics with exceptionally tight layouts. Anyone who has worked with mosaic tiles understands the challenge of achieving small grout lines.

This was the mosaic that started it all. On the front stoop of the house, it is made of broken pottery pieces and assorted tiles.

Just inside the main entrance is this bench giving a clue that this isn't going to be your normal garden adventure.

A favorite in the garden was this depiction of Adam and Eve, complete with watermelon headdresses. For scale, it's shown here with an interloping tourist sitting on the serpent.

Perhaps inspired by the artist's French origins, a meme strikes a pose on an imaginary post.

Near the entrance to the garden a jazz band quartet of characters performs.

The Sweet Patooti Piano, adorned with fruit, the top held open by acrobats and a bench of four dogs sits in front of the quartet.

Three swimmers swim circular laps in front of the Isola Bella set against the hillsides of native plants.

Three ceramic frogs and a swimmer spit water into the pond.

A chief adorns a birthday cake with candles for the celebrants.

A young girl and a staircase lined with people gazing upward, while a Dachshund with a huge tongue frolics below.

Acrobatic themes appear here and there in the garden.

An acrobat floats above the green wings of a giant bird.

Here a pair of acrobats hold a winged figure over a set of steps.

Meanwhile behind them acrobats juggle balls.

An oversized blossom opens to a pistil/table creating a resting place in the shade.

An unlikely set of steps with a fantastical handrail leads past another set of characters to the top of the garden.

A show hands tops a trio of vignettes as you walk across a pair of peacocks in the pathway.

...and of course every element is layered with details...

Throughout the garden is a cast of animal life with a veritable zoo of animals near the top of the garden.

The king and queen ruling over the garden of set in bed of Aeonium zwartkop. — The king and queen ruling over the garden of set in bed of *Aeonium zwartkop*.

Angels with shrunken heads herald the monarchs.

The queen is an angel while the king is taking direction from a darker force.

As you climb down from the top of the garden, you are greeted by more characters seated around ballerina.

Connecting areas of the garden are artistic walkways full of surprises. Much of it is blue tile which is one of my favorite colors to use in a garden: