The Living Foundation Garden
Award Winning Landscape Design at the Waikato Home & Garden Show 2025
The Living Foundation Garden was designed as a sanctuary of renewal, celebrating the relationship between people, plants and living systems.
AWARDED GOLD FOR BEST LANDSCAPE DESIGN 2025
Project Type: Show Garden
Location: Hamilton
Size: 60m2
Services: Concept Landscape Design
3D Visualisations
Construction Documentation
Project Management
The Living Foundation Garden was conceived as a celebration of the relationship between people and plants. Designed for the Waikato Home & Garden Show's Dreamer's Haven theme, it explores the idea that true sanctuary is created through connection with nature rather than separation from it.
Within a modest 10 × 6 metre footprint, edible natives, medicinal plants, habitat features and gathering spaces combine to demonstrate how beauty, biodiversity and productivity can coexist. Every element serves multiple purposes, supporting wildlife, encouraging interaction, and creating moments of reflection.
Awarded Gold for Best Landscape Design 2025, the garden demonstrates how regenerative design principles can transform even compact spaces into landscapes that nourish both people and nature.
Design Intent
Let's create an outdoor space that's thoughtfully designed for the way you live.
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The Living Foundation Garden was conceived as a celebration of the essential relationship between people and plants. Created for the Waikato Home & Garden Show's theme, The Dreamer's Haven, the garden explores the idea that true sanctuary is not found in separation from nature, but through deeper connection with it.
Within a modest 10m x 6m footprint, the design brings together the many roles plants play in sustaining life. Food, medicine, habitat, craft, wellbeing, and cultural knowledge are woven into a living landscape that invites visitors to slow down, observe, and engage with the natural world. Layered edible natives, healing herbs, and companion species create a small-scale food forest, demonstrating how beauty, productivity, and biodiversity can coexist.
At the heart of the garden sits the Healing Circle, a gathering space centred around fire, conversation, and reflection. Curved seating embraces the space, creating a sense of shelter and belonging while honouring the timeless relationship between community, food, and the landscape.
The design draws inspiration from regenerative principles, mātauranga Māori, and the interconnected systems found in nature. Every element serves multiple purposes: supporting biodiversity, creating habitat, stimulating the senses, and encouraging meaningful human interaction. Native species such as harakeke, punga, nikau, kawakawa, and kūmarahou sit alongside globally recognised healing plants, reflecting both local identity and shared human knowledge.
Subtle sensory experiences are intentionally embedded throughout the garden. The movement of grasses in the wind, the fragrance of herbs, the presence of pollinators, the warmth of stone, and the reflection of light on water all contribute to an atmosphere of calm and renewal.
More than a show garden, The Living Foundation Garden is a living reminder that plants are not merely decorative elements within a landscape. They are teachers, healers, providers, and companions. The garden encourages visitors to reimagine their own outdoor spaces as places of nourishment, resilience, learning, and connection.
"Ko ngā tipu te kaiako, te kaiwhakaora, te puna oranga tonutanga o te ao."
"Plants are the teachers, the healers, and the enduring source of life in the world.
The Story Behind the Garden