The greatest source of inspiration and learning I have found to aid my own gardening adventure, is returning to visit seasonally responsive gardens at different times of the year.
Here I give you a window into world renowned Fishermans Bay garden in early spring, with a film and feature to compare it to it’s summer show.

Join me for a photographic tour of my favourite spaces within the acclaimed Christchurch Botanic Gardens.

The gardens are a living record and story of both the city’s colonial past and Aotearoa’s ancient vegetation. It supports education, innovation and play while offering us botanical world travel by just exploring the extraordinary, carefully tended plantings. It is a romantic, transporting and active space with a heartbeat - I think quite easily taken for granted by all of us who have stitched it into our own life stories.

I eagerly open Amy Roberts chatty nursery newsletters and pause to enjoy her beautiful posts on Instagram, sucking in their atmospheric seasonal moments.

Elements of Amy’s own story reflect that of so many of us - the discovery of refuge and emotional healing that our gardens and plants so generously deliver.

Enjoy this intimate view into the emergence of a passion and a resulting business.

Explore this urban, seaside property where an interior designer and landscape designer found mutual ground.
The garden (still in its infancy) is a collision of styles that reflect the owner Alex Fulton’s aesthetic. Coastal with desert vibes, urban with a borrowed landscape of sea and rural hillsides, design-led but distinctly functional

Join me to explore the far-reaching corners of Ōhinetahi garden in Governor’s Bay, Banks Peninsula, New Zealand. Created by a family of art and plant loving architects, it is now a treasured jewel of significant gardens in Aotearoa. There is great inspiration to see in exotic vs. native planting and traditional structure vs. wildness.

Arrive at extraordinary Fishermans Bay just before dawn. Witness the sun rise and reach the South Island at this point before any other on a calm autumn morning. Fishermans Bay is a world-renown garden on the steep slopes of Banks Peninsula, New Zealand. Created by Jill and Richard Simpson, it has adorned the pages of the world’s best magazines and books, celebrated for its beautiful planting and amazing environment.

Click through for video and full article

Introducing Robyn Kilty and the small but enormously inspiring wild garden that ultimately ignited my gardening fire.
This urban garden in Christchurch might be tight on space but it is big with plants, ideas and a wild essence!

Let me introduce you to the beauty of the Blue House in the summer gloaming.
Hidden from passers-by, this garden answered my long-held lust for witnessing naturalistic style planting locally. To say that I was, and have since been, inspired would be an understatement. This feature will be of particular interest if you want to learn more about climate resilient planting and dry gardening.

My initial experience, and the many following at Flaxmere, opened my eyes to gardens as “spaces”, rather than just places.
Any pre-conceived ideas I had around them being delicate or quaint were rapidly unraveled.

Join me for a gentle guided walk through the garden (or realm!) of my mentor; Penny Zino. Share in her ability to create distinctly different areas within her 54 year old, 3.4 hectare garden created in the harsh North Canterbury climate. Not to mention the most incredible, New Zealand example of “naturalistic planting” as learned directly from Piet Oudolf.

Enter the storybook realm of Barewood garden in Marlborough, New Zealand. Explore the sprawling corners of the garden via the film by Flashworks Media and get a peep of an iconic New Zealand garden that is retiring from public access at the end of 2023.

As I’ve fallen further down this gardening rabbit hole and the idea to capture and share the intimacy of NZ gardens on film grew closer to reality….I knew that Winterhome would be at the top of my list.

See behind the scenes of our second installment of “The Magic of Gardening” film series and witness the beauty in a mature garden established along classical lines.