KEY POINTS:
You'd think it might be about green fingers, a willingness to talk to plants or having a wily way with fertilisers. But no, apparently the secret to success as a landscape designer is an ability to listen to your clients. Because without a client there is no job and without an ability to communicate between designer and client there is no success in design, maintains Sam Martin, a New Zealand landscape designer who is doing very well indeed, thank you, in London and who also has several projects on the go in this country.
After a stint working in Christchurch, during which time he designed the Canterbury Agricultural Park, Martin arrived in Britain in 2001 and set up his own business, Exterior Architecture, in London. He believed that New Zealand landscape architecture could teach the British a thing or two and since then he's designed everything from large private gardens to multimillion-dollar urban schemes.
Most recently, Martin won the commission to design the special New Zealand section that has recently become an official part of Savill Garden.
Near Windsor, it was founded in the 1930s under the patronage of royalty, and is described as one of Britain's greatest ornamental gardens.
Neither a botanical garden nor a kitchen garden attached to a great house, it is a garden for the garden's sake, enjoyed by horticulturalists and enthusiasts alike.
The New Zealand bit of the garden began when Queen Elizabeth II decided to house the native plants she had been gifted after a state visit to this country, at Savill. This year it all became official, with one of the biggest collections of native New Zealand plants in Britain, as designed by Martin, its own name - the New Zealand Garden - even a royal opening, fronted by the Duke of York.
MY 10 FAVOURITE THINGS
1. Battersea Power Station, Battersea, London.
Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed the red telephone box and what is now the Tate Modern. It's also on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album, Animals. I look out my office window at it and its scale and elegant monumentality inspire me every time.
2. The Seagram Building and podium landscape, New York.
Without a doubt the most impressive highrise building I have ever seen. It was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and it's intricate, yet simple and vast while unpretentious. Uplifting in every respect.
3. HQ Holden Kingswood station wagon, circa 1972, aka the brown Ferrari.
This is the family car that stayed in the family for nearly 20 years and provided my brothers and me and all of our friends many hours of fun on the roads in and around the farm we grew up on, in Peel Forest, South Canterbury. If only that car could talk - or maybe not!
4. A0 parallel rule drawing board by Neolt, Italy.
In this age of computers and instant graphics there is nothing more satisfying than sitting down at my drawing board with an HB pencil and some sketching paper to resolve a design.
5. Echo, by Neil Dawson in the north quadrangle, Christchurch Arts Centre.
The most simple and mesmerising piece of sculpture I have ever seen. To spend a few moments with no one else in that space, considering the many views, is truly wonderful.
6. Ayrlies Garden, Whitford, Howick.
Created by Beverley McConnell over a 40-year period, this, to me, is the quintessential New Zealand Garden. Bev's ability to deal with the harsh New Zealand light in so many different ways, using such a wide variety of plant material, combined with the ease in which it sits in the landscape, makes this garden an absolute pleasure.
7. Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, California.
The most breathtaking man-made object I have ever seen. To think it was built with a limited life span of 40 years in 1937 and is not only still there, but will be for a long time to come, is unbelievable. While studying in San Francisco in the early 1990s I had the pleasure of travelling up the service lift to the top of the south tower.
8. Rangitata Gorge from Stew Point, in a painting by Austen Deans.
This was commissioned by my grandmother, Joanna Martin. This painting depicts the breathtaking view you get looking up the Rangitata river to Mesopotamia and the Two Thumbs Range. The painting transports me back to my childhood and memories of coming back to one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.
9. The Aeron Chair by Herman Miller.
Simply the most comfortable thing I own.
10. 65 Cambridge Terrace, Christchurch, designed by Sir Miles Warren.
I had the pleasure of working on the ground floor of this building for Robert Watson Landscape Architects. I learned a lot there. We used to look out into the garden and compound of ancillary buildings behind what was originally Miles Warrens office and studio. The spaces that these buildings create, both inside and out, are incredibly delicate and light. It was the most wonderful place to have had the pleasure and privilege to work in.
