Designing a Native Aotearoa New Zealand Garden
- artfulgardensnz
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
There are so many benefits when creating a garden utilising New Zealand Native plants, such as:
Amazing variety of textures and colours
Readily available, affordable plants to buy
Generally pest and disease resistant
Low maintenance
Provide food source and housing to our native creatures
Native plantings suit all types of architecture
Mostly evergreen and provide year round interest
Suit the local climate and so likely need less watering
There is a native plant for every aspect of your garden design
Generally it works to start with the bigger plants at the back of your garden bed, working forward with the smaller plants and groundcovers.
Native hedges provide excellent, often fast-growing, screening and shelter. They come in a wide range of colour and textures.
There are many small trees to provide a vertical focal point in your garden, climbers that will break up walls or cover fences.
A large mass planting of grasses always looks good and can be punctuated with one of the small trees.
Our native groundcovers are especially good at filling in garden beds and providing weed suppression.
There are also a range of groundcovers that can be used as lawn alternatives as well as a beautiful native lawn species, Microlaena stipoides.
Maintenance For A Native NZ Garden
A thick layer (100mm+) of tree mulch or compost for water retention and nutrients as it breaks down
Trim establishing plants to shape, to encourage new plants to bush up
Prune after any frosts and not on a hot day
Remove dead/dying leaves, flowers and fern fronds
Prune trees and hedges yearly
Some of My Favourite Native Plants For New Zealand Gardens
For more advice like this see What Plant Where- A Simple Garden Making Guide For Aotearoa New Zealand Gardens or book an on-site garden consultation with Artful Gardens today.
Image Credits
"Microlaena stipoides" by NSW Grassy Ecosystems is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
"Alectryon excelsus excelsus" by William Harland is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
"Melicytus alpinus 121105688" by Christopher Stephens is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
"Xeronema callistemon" by John Barkla is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
"Euphorbia glauca" by Katrina Muir is marked with CC0 1.0.
"Chionochloa rubra rubra" by Kate McAlpine is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
"Carex virgata" by Colin Meurk is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
"Tecomanthe speciosa" by Chris Parminter is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
"Parsonsia heterophylla kz11" by Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
"Clematis paniculata in Egmont NP 01" by Krzysztof Golikis licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
