Step into the Havelock North garden of Phil and Gillian, former owners of The Green Door garden centre. This vibrant, woodland-inspired space is filled with unique, colourful and textured plantings.
Images by Pippa Marffy
Phil Carson and Gillian Thrum are the former owners of a well-known garden centre in Hawke’s Bay, and are both a wealth of garden knowledge to many. So who wouldn’t want a squizz into the world of plants they harbour in their own backyard?
Multi-stemmed trees emerge from the dense undergrowth of abundant en masse planting.
Phil and Gillian’s garden in Havelock North is a parcel of delight. The property has a woodland-feel, featuring pops of colour and texture throughout. Multi-stemmed trees emerge from the dense undergrowth of abundant en masse planting. This style of planting creates an effective patchwork of variety and textural tones.
The garden sees a unique combination of colours and varieties of species planted together. Phil and Gillian seem to set their own trends when it comes to garden design, bringing together all sorts of striking ensembles.
The garden presents an interesting and unique topography — mostly due to the natural bowl shape setting. The result is a restful and peaceful woodland style garden, bursting with trees and bird life. It envelopes you.
The garden is filled with predominantly perennial plants (the basis of Phil and Gillian’s plant nursery in the early days while they were developing the garden), combining a huge variety of them in a sunny border around the property.
The garden presents an unique topography due to its natural bowl shape setting.
Phil’s favourite plants within the garden are the ever-changing maples, shade-loving hostas and geraniums. Gillian loves her roses, and anything that resembles a woodland plant or can be picked.
A journey of the garden can be taken by following meandering pathways, steps and crossing a troll-like bridge. You’ll walk past billowing hydrangeas, and striking flowering combos such as peach roses, apricot-coloured helenium and white shasta daisies. Burgundy heuchera plants float amongst a sea of pale blue forget-me-nots, and you’ll discover the largest bed of hellebores you have ever seen.
Both Phil and Gillian have their upbringings to thank for their dedication to plants. Phil, from a young age, was influenced by his very gardening-keen aunt. His first job was in a garden centre, and he reminisces on it being back in the days when you had to spend the winter handwriting labels for each plant! Phil continued on working at shrub and rose nurseries, before opening the plant nursery that he and Gillian ran together.
A striking combo of a peach rose, apricot-coloured helenium and white shasta daisies.
Helenium in full glory.
Gillian fell in love with the idea of gardening and raising plants when she ventured out on her first spring garden tour in the countryside. She began growing perennial flowering plants and selling them by mail order, then later opened a perennial nursery with her mother, Alice Thrum.
Phil was an early customer of Gillian’s perennial nursery, Peak Perennials, which was how the couple met. When Phil eventually made the move from New Plymouth to Hawke’s Bay in 1998, the couple purchased a failing garden centre and renamed it The Green Door. To this day you can still see the garage-like building with a green roller door which was the original entrance to the centre. This is where the name came from, and though the centre has been well developed and brought by new owners since then, the name has stuck and become well known throughout the Bay.
The two have been known to galavant around the world, and more recently into obscure areas in New Zealand to discover and document rare and unique native plants. Their love for plants is evident when talking to them, and between the two of them there isn’t much that’ll stump them when it comes to anything to do with plants!
Admitting they’re completely self taught, Phil and Gillian are a wealth of knowledge that Hawke’s Bay has been lucky to have. And their garden is something many of us aspire to.
