By William Hansby
Starting a new garden from a blank canvas is not always an advantage; in fact, it can have its own pitfalls. And If you don’t have the knowledge or experience, you may end up creating more problems than you solve.
For a start you need to spend some time in the proposed site, as everyone knows, to watch the way the sun falls, wind direction and problems that may be associated with heavy rain. Then there are other questions; is the soil fertile, what plant palette would be suitable, how will the changing seasonal patterns and climate affect how plants develop? Perhaps most of all, what theme or type of garden do I want?
Award winning garden designer Andy Hamilton says one of the main pitfalls is gardeners getting caught up in minor details.
Andy won The Registered Master Landscapers Premier Award 2023 and will be one of the top garden design experts you can meet at Auckland’s premier garden festival, Auckland Garden DesignFest in November.
People can get a little too focussed on the minutiae from the outset, he says. “Like, ‘I want this particular plant’, and then they get a bit hamstrung later as they are filling in the rest of their garden because they haven’t stood back and thought about it as an entire composition.”
“It's a little bit like you are doing some interior design at your house and you buy the cushions first and they’re really bold and you think oh crumbs how do I make this all work and you’ve built in this constraint.”
He suggests taking a step back and assessing and thinking about a plant palette or community you want to develop, including any trees that might cast shade before making any more detailed decisions.
“When I design a garden, I begin with the canopy, I then go down to the next layer, the shrubs and then groundcovers,” he says. “Because if you don’t know what the light and shade characteristics are going to be across the garden, you can’t really design the ground covers with any great confidence. A woodland plant doesn’t want to be in full sun so much.”
His gardens tend to be quite full and rich in foliage texture and varying shades of green.
Mulch is obviously very useful and plays an important role during the establishment period but he doesn’t like to see it. So there is usually a selection of spreading groundcovers that blanket the ground, which reduces the need for maintenance and weeding.
Some species will be used as individuals throughout a scheme, others will be planted in drifts, mimicking nature.
“Certain perennials, if you don’t plant them in a big enough group, they become vulnerable during that winter dormancy to plants that are next to it that grow throughout the year. So they need a big enough scale to withstand the argy bargy of their adjacent plant species,” he says.
A final tip: Buy as many of your plants as you can in one go and set up quite a big tranche so you can realise the greater composition. Or just start with the trees and large shrubs and let those mature for a year and fill in the groundcovers later if you need to save for budget reasons. Lay the plants out in your desired plan before planting.
“And if you don’t engage a designer then I strongly advocate that you go to a specialist nursery when you’re buying your plants in bulk. Specialist nurseries are really knowledgeable about plants and can help guide you in that process. They’re a great starting point - so ask a lot of questions.”
The designers selected for 2024 are:
Alex Luiten (landscape and Ecology), Amanda Warren (Garden for Wellbeing), Andy Hamilton (Andy Hamilton Studio), Claire Talbot (Sculpt Gardens), Deb Hardy (Deb Hardy Garden Design), Dominic Sudano (Russet Gardens), Garden to Table, Glenys Yeoman (Glenys Yeoman Design), Jill Pierce, Katie Battersby, Kirsten Sachs (Kirsten Sachs Landscapes), Louise Hanlon and Ian Henderson, Matt McIsaac (Growing Gardens), Paul Gallagher (Mace Landscape Group), Penny Milne, Richard Neville (Neville Design Studio), Brett McLennan (Robin Schafer Design), Trish Bartleet and Sebastian Bartleet (Bartleet Design Studio), Val Puxty (Val Puxty Landscape Design) Xanthe White (Xanthe White Design- two-time Chelsea Flower Show award winner).
Deb Hardy, Auckland Garden DesignFest Festival Director, says their wide-ranging work includes an artist’s garden lovingly developed to complement one of Auckland’s oldest houses; the latest in permaculture, and a showcase of the growing trend of urban forests.
“Edible, ornamental and flower gardens blend together, alongside statement-making sculptures. Enhancing tiny house or Airbnb spaces is another focus, alongside the first Garden to Table entry into the festival,” she says.
The gardens are located in Herne Bay, St Mary’s Bay, Ponsonby, Westmere, Point Chevalier, Sandringham, Mt Albert, Mt Eden, Remuera, Orakei, St Heliers, Glendowie, Castor Bay and Devonport.
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