Over the years we have come to have many favourite plants – be it annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees – evergreen and deciduous etc.  We have a soft spot for cottage style planting and informal style alongside the more formal garden spaces.

With the climate being vast opposites in the long hot dry summertime through to the cool, frosty and sometimes snowy conditions in winter it has additionally meant a focus on varieties and species that will cope with the extreme conditions.

We have focused on the core garden room spaces being of a mixed heritage or older proven varieties alongside some modern ones as follows:

The cottage garden includes…

Old rambling roses of Blanc Double de Corbet, Cornelia rose, Bliari No2 rose Wedding day rose, Chapeau de Napoleon crested moss rose, Radio Times Rose, Penny Lane Rose, City of London Rose, David Austin roses – Princess Alexander of Kent, Mary Rose, Tranquillity and Munstead Wood, white Alba wisteria, clematis, Janet Scott sweet pea, Parade, Shirley and Winnie, Blue Sails viola’s, pansy, catnip, hyssop, English, French and Spanish lavender, lupins, delphinium, foxglove, columbines, dianthus, asters, cosmos, penstemons, scabiosa, guara, bacopa, achellia and lady’s mantle. All of these are planted per the core planting plan we created and with spring bulbs of blue tones scattered through, a dash of some tulips, regal lillies, pacific hybrid lillies, dutch flag iris, bearded iris, peonies and dahlias. The cottage garden is just over 20m long and 3m wide and includes two large tree stumps from a tulip magnolia and white cherry blossom tree. There are also herbs of rosemary, oregano and echinacea included in this garden.

Trees scattered throughout the rooms include… 

Rhodo, cameilla’s, azalea, cherry trees – flowering ornamentals, magnolia, dogwood, wintersweet, Mexican elm, thuja, white birch, five varieties of syringa -lilac tree, many NZ native varieties such as ake ake, five varities of pittosporum, kakabeak, hebe, corokia to name a few.

The formal parterre garden includes Mme Alfred Carierre rose, montana snowflake clematis grown on archways, Land of the long white cloud hybrid rose along with Alba lavender and frost hardy clipped topiary balls.

The Coach House Garden Rooms value sustainable, eco-friendly and natural gardening practices including organic gardening methods and seed collection. We use no-dig practices, simple green / brown composting, natural treatments and remedies, permaculture principles and zero spray philosophies.

We embrace nature and all that it gives to us. We love to reuse, recycle, re-purpose and up-cycle unused products wherever we can and to turn things into special features in our core garden elements and in our design practices. We run the garden tools, maintenance program as well as our home 95% off the grid using solar power.

Being consciously eco and environmentally friendly is the way of the future. Our philosophy is that our footprint must now be light, respectful and responsible of the environment we live in so that future generations can have a better life.