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Drought Tolerant Gardens – Are You Watering Wisely?

Drought-tolerant gardens have been a popular choice in recent years and with experts now predicting the warming El Niño climate pattern to last until at least April next year, it seemed a good time to refresh this blog on how you can reduce water usage in garden. Heading for the succulent section of your local garden centre and planting Xerophytic desert plants might seem like the answer to a hot dry summer, but these don’t suit all climates or garden aesthetics, and with ...

Best Landscape Design Features For Property Resale

If you are prepping your property for sale, and want to make it more appealing to potential buyers, then don’t neglect the garden!Because a well-designed garden can increase the value of your home by as much as 10% to 12%. That's a significant increase that can translate to thousands of dollars!Money aside, gardens also evolve emotion, and not only is your garden the first thing potential buyers see when they arrive at your property, it’s also visible from almost every window they look ...

Planting Design - 5 Tricks Landscape Professionals Use

A good planting design or interesting planting scheme is what brings a garden to life!Read any plant-focused garden design blog (except this one) and it’ll bang on how if you want your garden planting to do well, it's vital that you choose the right plant for the conditions and space, and the importance of selecting appropriate species for your site conditions. That’s excellent advice, but well covered already.Let’s assume you’ve done your research in that space, dig a little deeper, and...

Plants for a New Zealand Coastal Garden

Auckland landscape design forms a large body of the design work we do here at DIY Designs, so our projects often involve the creation of tough planting schemes that will survive the challenges of a coastal setting.Our previous blog on coastal gardens focussed on suggestions for landscape trees, shrubs and hedges to use in a coastal landscape design, in the temperate Auckland region. In this follow-up blog, the focus is on lower-growing plants, such as small shrubs and groundcovers.COASTAL C...

Coastal Auckland Landscape Design

During my Auckland landscape design career, many garden design projects I have worked on have had stunning coastal backdrops. With these gorgeous views, comes the challenge of putting together a landscape of plants aka a ‘plant palette’ that can cope with the salt-laden winds of the exposed Auckland coastline.Agapanthus aside, there are plenty of plants that are hardy to salty breezes and that will thrive in the humid Auckland climate. This blog focuses on the larger plants (trees, shrubs an...

Landscape Designer’s 6 Best Hedge Plants

From a landscape designer's perspective, the best hedge plants for NZ gardens are those that will meet the needs of the client and best serve the purpose for which they are being planted, be that adding structure to the landscape, providing fast and effective screening of an ugly eyesore or creating privacy for your overlooked garden. This means the most appropriate hedge plant options will vary from project to project, making it almost impossible to choose just 6 of the best. We'll ta...

Blossom Trees for Small Front Garden Designs

Front gardens bring out the design voyeur in me! While out walking it’s hard not to snoop at what other Auckland homeowners are doing to smarten up their entrance spaces, as these small front garden spaces can be a landscaping challenge.What I’m loving currently is that with winter finally receding, and spring upon us, Auckland is bursting into full bloom, or should I say, blossom!...

Garden Design Ideas | 3 Tips To Get Started

Garden designers love garden porn as much as anyone and we know that many enjoyable hours can be spent drooling over gardens in Pinterest and Instagram. These are great tools for getting design inspiration and for keeping up with current garden trends, however, there comes a point when all those beautiful and clever garden & landscape design ideas can just start to get confusing and overwhelming.  How are all those ideas going to fit together in a manner that look effortless a...

Low Maintenance Garden Plants

Cyclical garden trends make fashion victims of some great low maintenance garden plants. It’s hard to keep a good plant down though, especially one that needs minimal water, is adaptable to a range of soil and light conditions and that is resistant to pests and diseases . Perhaps that is why eventually they come back into favour. Of course, being attractive helps too....

Why Fake Grass?

Fake grass promises a lot of positive outcomes and one of the main reasons people consider it is because it offers a chemical-free, low-maintenance alternative to a real lawn. Or does it? I created a garden design for a client's holiday home recently and they shared with me their experience about having used artificial turf at their main residence in Christchurch, NZ.  Here's what they said..."Weeds, weeds, weeds - sold to us on the basis that we would have the "odd weed" but moss and ...

Landscape Designer’s 10 Best Low Maintenance Groundcover Plants

From a landscape designer's perspective, the best groundcover plants are those that will quickly cover areas of bare soil, and therefore help suppress the establishment of undesirable weed species. In this blog, we cover how you can use groundcover plants to reduce your garden maintenance and provide a list of 10 of the best groundcover plants suitable for most New Zealand growing conditions, including a few NZ native plant species....

Landscape Plans – When and Why You Need Them!

A landscape plan is a record of, or a proposal for a landscape, shown from an overhead or ‘birds-eye’ perspective.  You can be asked by Council to supply a landscape plan at the outset of a property development such as a subdivision, or for significant home renovation or landscaping projects that require consent. Rather than see this as a nuisance, think of it as an opportunity, as it means that the design of your landscape is being considered from the outset as an integral part of your...

Landscape a NZ Garden​ - How much does it cost?

The much-asked question ‘How much does it cost to landscape a garden in NZ’ has a very simple answer. In short, as much as you are prepared to spend! So is the sky the limit or are you constrained by post build budget  blow outs that have little to no money for your landscaping? Budget matters. This is why landscape designers and contractors will always ask you early in discussions what your landscaping budget, as the amount you are prepared to spend will influence the solutions they su...

Landscape Design - Spring Project

Landscape design sales always nose-dive during winter, which is a shame as it is the ideal time to plan your spring landscape design project. What better way to spend gloomy winter days than to look to our gardens for a bit of spring cheer, especially with cheery yellow daffodils already showing their heads. Using yellow in the garden is an easy way to add a touch of sunshine to your outdoor space. ...

Garden Planning : How to tell your Garden Soil type

Garden planning includes understanding your soil type. Here’s how to tell what type of garden soil you have. It’s quick, easy and best of all, free!  MAKE A SOIL SAUSAGE  Just scoop up a handful of soil, add a little water and mould it into a sausage shape. Now bend it a bit more. If it falls apart in your hand, your soil is sandy; if you can keep bending it until it forms a circle, you have clay soil. If you can easily bend it into a sausage but it doesn’t stretch to form a circ...

How to make a Low Maintenance Garden - With or Without Weed Mat

"How do I make my garden low maintenance?" When I have this conversation with landscaping clients, talk often turns quickly to their plans to lay down weed mat. In garden circles a fierce debate rages on this topic and whether weed mat is wicked, or a wonderful low-maintenance garden solution? Those who sit in the wonderful camp might say weed mat suppresses the growth and spread of noxious weeds and so it reduces the need for spraying, which provides an environmental benefit that balances out t...

Landscaping for Indoor Outdoor Flow

Indoor Outdoor Flow - landscaping and gardens are an undeniable part of this and there are some very simple ways you can achieve indoor outdoor flow, regardless of whether you are building new or landscaping as part of a renovation or home makeover project, if you simply consider the inside and the outside together and create ‘linking’ elements, things that flow either physically or visually from the inside to out....

Online Garden Design New Zealand

Online garden design in New Zealand is an easy and cost-effective way to get the garden you want. Wherever you live in New Zealand, you can work with an experienced designer and get their expert design advice on what to do with your garden. Our online DIY Designs are as bespoke and personalised as our traditional garden designs and the process is much the same, but with welcome conveniences like viewing the design online at a time that suits your schedule using our online booking system and...

Small Garden Design New Zealand

Small garden design in New Zealand is a DIY Designs specialty and we have created a few online options to help you get a great design for your small garden space, regardless of where in New Zealand you live, at a really affordable price.Small garden design is perfectly catered for with three of our online in New Zealand offers. One great option is our ‘Micro Design’. This is a visual design, perfect for small projects like a garden makeover for your front entrance or just one pesky corner of...

Auckland Garden Design Consultation

In Auckland, garden design consultations are often suggested as a ‘next step’ when you get in touch with a potential garden designer. However, if you have made several garden design enquiries, it can come as a surprise when one designer pitches a fee for doing the consultation and another does it for free. So, a free garden design consultation versus paying for a garden design consultation. Seems like a no-brainer, right? I mean, why pay for what you can get for free? Well, having done ...

Working with Top Auckland Landscapers

Working with Top Auckland Landscapers is the dream of any aspiring Auckland Landscape Designer. Or at least it should be.Reflecting recently on my career as a landscape designer to date, I realise how much my design style and my approach to designing gardens has been influenced from having cut my design teeth working directly with one of Auckland’s top landscapers. I believe this is one of the key reasons for my success as a designer.Anyone who knows me, knows about my long affiliation with to...

Auckland Garden and Landscape Design - Best Privacy & Screening Ideas

Auckland landscape design professionals have long been experts at creating privacy for the garden and for many years have been lessening the impact of infill housing for Auckland homeowners with clever garden privacy and screening design solutions. Clever garden privacy and screening ideas have evolved along with our city, which is great because the Auckland landscape is changing again and rather quickly - one multi-housing complex at a time. Drive through any central Auckland suburb and yo...

Garden Design Ideas for a Balinese Garden

Garden design ideas for a Balinese garden – search this term and you will find results ranging from a contemporary resort-style aesthetic to rustic, aged settings. This makes the Balinese Garden a versatile garden design theme, easily recreated in many garden contexts. Whatever your aesthetic, these verdant, tropical-looking gardens create an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity, making them the perfect choice if you are also looking for garden design ideas for a ‘holiday at home’ gar...

Using New Zealand Native Plants for Landscape Design

Designing landscapes with New Zealand Native plants celebrates the uniqueness of New Zealand’s native flora and so is deservedly popular. However, it is not always as fail-safe as one might think. As with all themed landscapes, when designing with native plants or creating a ‘Native Garden’, appropriate plant selection is crucial. Choosing ill-considered selections may not create the low maintenance landscapes many people are looking for when using native plant species. Size matters. ...

Front Yard Landscaping Ideas

Front yard landscaping ideas traditionally focused on achieving two main aims: Enhancing a home’s entrance zone and creating street appeal.Today, space poor homeowners are asking a lot more from their front yard landscaping. Ideas to create street appeal and an attractive, functional entrance zone are still expected but typically this is combined with ideas for landscaping and planting that will also provide security, privacy and screening as outdoor play and living moves into the front yard s...