Landscape design and build · Invercargill and Southland
Stone walls and paving that stay put through the frosts, planting that shrugs off a southerly, and lawns that drain after a week of rain. Designed and built by one small team, from Bluff to Te Anau.
01 Who we are
We're a small landscape design and build team based in Invercargill. Ellie draws the gardens and Tom's crew builds them, so the person who planned your wall is never far from the person laying it.
Southland is a hard place to garden well. Heavy frosts, wet winters, clay that sets like concrete in February and a westerly that never quite stops. We've spent more than a decade learning what thrives here and what doesn't.
So every garden we make starts with the site: where the water sits after rain, where the frost lingers, which way the wind comes. Then we choose the plants, the stone and the timber to suit, and build it to last.
02 What we do
Most of our gardens use a few of these together. Pick one to see what's included, how long it takes and a guide price.
03 Selected projects
A sunny courtyard in town, a steep hillside on the coast and a sandy, windswept block. Ask us for a garden near you that you can go and look at.
Project 01 · Waikiwi, Invercargill
This north-facing back garden was patchy lawn and a rotting fence. We gave it a louvred pergola that opens up for the low winter sun and closes against summer showers, big porcelain pavers that dry quickly after rain, and just enough lawn for the kids.
Project 02 · Riverton
A steep, west-facing section that drained straight onto the house. We cut a level platform, built a dry-stacked stone wall with drainage behind it and laid a hardwood deck that catches the afternoon sun. The old stone steps up to the vege garden were reset, not replaced.
Project 03 · Otatara
On sandy Otatara soil, a low block retaining wall and a shelter planting of pittosporum, olearia and cabbage trees now take the edge off the westerly. In the sheltered corner, tree ferns and native groundcovers filled in within two seasons, with almost no watering.
04 From recent seasons
A few more gardens from the last couple of years, from a single set of steps to a whole back section.
05 How it works
Three steps, the same for a single hedge as for a whole new garden. You always know what happens next and what it costs.
We walk the section with you and look at where the water sits, where the frost lingers and which way the wind comes. You get honest advice on the spot, even if it's that you don't need us.
A scaled concept plan and planting list, with a written, itemised price for building it. Changes are part of the process, not an extra.
Our own crew builds it, start to finish, with a short update every Friday. We plant at the right time of year for Southland, not just when the walls are done.
06 Kind words
We'd rather be known for gardens that are still thriving in five years than for anything else.
Our back lawn had been a bog for nine years. Tom found the problem in about five minutes, and after a week of drainage work the kids were playing out there in July.
Ellie's plan used plants we'd never have picked ourselves, and every one of them came through the June frosts. Three years on it looks better than the drawings.
They built the wall, the steps and the deck around our old kōwhai without a scratch on it. Tidy every afternoon, and finished the week they said they would.
Tell us a little about your place and we'll come out, free, to look at the sun, the soil and the wind with you. Most site visits happen within ten working days.