Gold, Maintenance (over 1,500m²), Landscapes of Distinction Awards 2025. Mount Creighton, Queenstown. By Green Therapy Ltd.
Set where beech forest, grey shrubland and wetland meet in the shadow of Mount Creighton on Lake Wakatipu, Bobs Cove Retreat is a garden built to reconnect its owners with nature and enrich the local environment. Green Therapy, who designed the original planting, now steward a sloping site of variable soils, shifting natural springs and unpredictable winds, occupied only part of the year.
Maintenance here is ecology in action: encouraging self-seeding manuka, coprosma and toe toe, blurring the boundary with the neighbouring conservation reserve, adapting drainage to ever-changing springs, and removing exotic pests so native habitat can return for jewelled gecko, tui and fantail. Irrigation was retired after two years as deep-rooting, eco-sourced planting took hold. The result is a garden that increasingly looks as though nature made it.
Why it matters
Every Registered Master Landscaper has earned the right to carry the mark, so the professional you hire is current, accountable, and backed by a national association that stands behind its work. Find a Registered Master Landscaper at masterlandscapers.org.nz.
Project credits
Member: Green Therapy Ltd. Landscapes of Distinction Awards 2025.