Inside Taranaki’s Best-Kept Garden Secret: Nikau Grove (Centuria Garden Festival)

Home & Garden Design Tour — Nikau Grove (New Plymouth, NZ). A native “garden tour” + landscape design walkthrough: shade-loving planting ideas, low-maintenance pathways, plant list, and layout tips. Filmed for the Centuria Taranaki Garden Festival (31 Oct–9 Nov 2025).

A 5-Star Garden of National Significance | Cinematic Ambient New Plymouth Subtropical Tour

Discover how Nikau Grove blends NZ native plants into a cohesive, low-maintenance landscape. This garden walkthrough covers design principles (structure, layers, light, flow), small-space ideas, coastal/shade planting, and year-round interest. You’ll see nīkau palms, ponga/tree ferns, lush understory, and practical paths—actionable ideas you can copy at home.

In this exclusive interview , the Linds reveal their low-maintenance gardening philosophy—prioritizing lush, deep green foliage and texture over high-maintenance flowers. Discover the success of their conservation work: the gully now teems with birdsong thanks to their predator control efforts, and we take you past unique features like the large waterfall, scenic boardwalks, and the charming Wētā Motel.

This New Plymouth garden tour is an inspiration for anyone looking to create an immersive, low-effort, jungle-like sanctuary.

Explore Nikau Grove with me during the Centuria Taranaki Garden Festival, running 31 October – 9 November 2025 across Taranaki. This 10-day celebration returns for its 38th year, with 43+ breathtaking gardens and 30+ events/workshops open to visitors—from native-bush sanctuaries to sub-tropical inner-city retreats. Plan your route, check the programme, and book tickets to meet the owners, learn from speakers, and experience the region in full spring bloom. It’s New Zealand’s 2023 Favourite Event for a reason—don’t miss it. See the official festival site for maps, tickets, and updates.

The conservation efforts and celebration of New Zealand nature in this garden are amazing.

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Nico Grove is about working with what was here and extending it into the garden. Giving it a kiwi feel rather than the normal English style. Just you just work with the bush and keep the South Pacific feel as well. From the comments I get, um, it’s it’s different. It’s natural and just the peacefulness that that comes from the natural environment. I think we didn’t start the garden by making that the main making the Nico the main focus. We did the typical English garden. We had cherry blossoms down the drive and we had a perennial garden out the front which was very pretty I have to say. But eventually the cherry blossoms started dying. they started getting a kind of rot in the trunks. Um, so we’d cut one out and think, “Oh, well, we’ll make do with the rest.” But eventually they all started going the same way. Once the Nico palms became obvious because they were only little seedlings when we came, which was 46 years ago. Um once they started getting a bit higher, it it just I looked across the lawn one day and thought there’s a theme happening here. Yeah. So that made me decide to aim for a Kiwi South Pacific feel. [Music] We had a group of people come through the garden about the second year we opened and before they’d looked around, they stood there and the girl said, “I can’t believe what you’ve done with this place.” And I said, “Are you familiar with it?” And she said, “This used to be my horse paddock. 46 years ago and we’ve never told anybody this before. We because we thought people would never believe us. We had a kiwi in the bush. We would hear it calling at night. It must have been a male because they have that higher pitched call. I kick myself now that we never went to look for it or never notified Doc or somebody like that. I I don’t know now how long it would have lasted. Um but to me it it just points to the fact that these pockets of bush are valuable. If we can bring back the birds like that it would be absolutely awesome I think. the waterfall bank. Ian built that himself with machinery he had from work, but that was completely bare. That bank was all grass obviously. It was part of the original horse paddic. Um, and our girls had it for pet lambs. We had the three of them had their pet lambs. So once the last lamb or sheep it was at the time died, we thought how are we going to look after this bank and that’s how the idea of of planting it out and doing the waterfall came into vogue. all areas as we’ve developed them, I think, and and once they’re all tidied up and looking nice, it just makes you realize that it’s um yeah, we’re lucky to be living here really. When visitors come, I like to see them walk away with a smile on their face, and a lot do. I love watching them and they come in and quite often they look a bit grumpy perhaps because they wonder what they’re coming to walking down the steep drive. Um I do. And then after after they’ve walked around, they’ll they’ll come back hands behind their backs and strolling along with a smile on their face and and yeah, they just say they’re blown away and thanks for opening and yeah, it’s just I get a lot of pleasure out of that. [Music] When we came, the place was riddled with psums. They we’d come home at night and there’d be there’d be five or six of them sitting on the drive as we drove in. Um, so we were setting psum traps earlier on and it’s it’s really good now because the council are doing the same through the this patch of bush and I presume all of New Plymouth. [Music] Rats are a constant. We have five bait stations around. Um, so we are poisoning them and we do see the occasional dead one around. So that’s helping. Tuies are are quite prolific actually. There’s been a lot on. It’s always the same when you want to hear them. They’re not here. But they’ve been quite um noisy lately. As long as we’re here, I’ll keep doing it because I love doing it. Opening for public occasions is a lot of work and I think that’s that’s our main pressure really. So you’re saying get in while you can. Yes. Start when you’re young. True. My takeaway from Nico Grove is that remarkable artistry doesn’t need a heavy hand. This garden leans into the native ecosystem and lets it lead, turning its rhythms into mesmerizing landscapes. Instead of battling the elements to force a vision, it shows what’s possible when you work with them. The New Zealand bush becomes your teammate. It’s fully intentional and designed. Yet, as you walk the paths, the design dissolves into a feeling of belonging to the landscape. You can visit Niko Grove during the Centuria Tanaki Garden Festival from Friday the 31st of October to Sunday the 9th of November this year and it’s a mustsee. Niko Grove proves you don’t need force to make beauty. Design yields to the ecosystem and the bush leads so the paths feel inevitable and you feel like part of the landscape. If you enjoyed this, then look at my video with award-winning author Janet Hunt here. There’s a twist that none of us saw coming. If this garden spoke to you, like and subscribe for more Talanaki stories. See you.