Perfect for a windy site, or near the coast

This garden is a very good example of three plants brought together into one garden, and they are all great options for a very dry garden - all of these would work on a windy site, or near the coast.

The feature tree is a variety of OLIVE - grown as a beautiful topiary specimen - like the shape of a mushroom on a stem. If you plan on replicating an olive in your garden to look something like the one in the photo, you must be prepared to get out with your clippers every few months over the growing season and trim regularly, because olive trees can be quite vigorous growers in our New Zealand climate. The olives can handle low levels of moisture very well - hence why there is a lot growing naturally in Italy, Greece, and South of France - but if they get into a climate that does provide good moisture, then they are off, and new growth comes rapidly. The olive also makes a great specimen feature tree in a pot/container even if its roots get rather crowded, it will last very well, for a very long time. To keep it in top condition feed 2 x per year, with a low nitrogen fertiliser.

We have a variety of DAYLILY in the centre, and surrounding the garden is a hedge of TEUCRIUM FRUTICANS - a silver foliaged hedging plant, that performs outstandingly well, in hot dry climates with strong winds- this plant doesn’t like wet feet - in fact it will curl up its toes very quickly if it stands in waterlogged soil over the winter months. I personally think the hedge can look great and perform quite well, but I wouldn’t put such a plant in my garden, because it just grows too fast over the summer months - you can be out trimming the long new shoots every 3 weeks if you want to keep it looking like the one in the photo.