Sally Gordon and Trish Bartleet trained as garden designers together at Unitec and Massey University and then worked together designing gardens for around five years. Sally had done an early design for her garden which included some good structural plants enclosing the back garden.

Sal came back from an overseas trip where her husband (Green in name only!) was pursuing his dream of sailing around the world and she wanted her own dream too. She was tired of weeding the same old areas of her garden and wanted it to be fun to be in, with a sunny spot for the morning, a place for airbnb guests, less maintenance, a water feature and a path up the side for convenience.

Large macrocarpa vegetable beds and flowing gardens had encroached on the back lawn and the back deck needed enlarging and replacing. The front garden path would remain but needed a tart-up and the little-used front sloping lawn was not a particularly welcoming entry. A retaining wall along the front boundary also needed replacing.

The resulting design shifted the vegie gardens into the front garden, along with some dramatic garden beds, which have transformed this area into a memorable arrival point. The back garden is a balanced composition of deck, lawn, sun platform, oversized pots and colourful, lush gardens.

In Sal’s own words: “I love it. I spend hours tizzying, without a jot of frustration. The garden is easy to look after, I love looking down on it and guests think it is amazing. It is all I dreamt of.”