Green Valley Gardening

Green Valley Gardening Gardening company based in the Hutt Valley
Organic 🐝
Eco-friendly 🌲
Wellington 🇳🇿
Qualified 🤓

16/06/2026

🌹 How to prune a standard rose, the GVG way.

Winter is rose pruning season in New Zealand and this week we're working through our standard roses across Wellington. Here's exactly what we do and why.

Sharp clean secateurs first, always. Then out comes anything thinner than a pencil, any dead or damaged wood, any inward facing growth, and any crossing canes. We're aiming to remove around half the overall growth and build an open vase shape that lets light and air into the centre of the plant.

Every cut goes to an outward facing bud at 45 degrees, about five millimetres above the bud. We strip and pick up any remaining foliage after pruning, most people skip this but it removes overwintering disease and is just as important as the prune itself.

We finish with a copper and conqueror oil spray across all stems and surrounding soil. The most important rose spray of the year. Don't skip it.

Questions about your roses? Drop them in the comments. 💚

11/06/2026

🌿 Winter in a 4-Star Garden of Significance. Wellington, New Zealand.

The hydrangeas have finished. The trees are bare. And somehow it's never looked more beautiful.

This is Woodcote Gardens on a crisp winter morning and this is exactly why we leave those dried hydrangea heads on through winter. The structure, the texture, the warmth of those papery blooms against the clipped mānuka balls. It earns its place until late winter arrives and the pruning season begins.

Some gardens are at their best in summer. The great ones have something to say in every season. 💚

📍 Woodcote Gardens - 4-Star Garden of Significance

Championing NZ Gardens
Mangaroa Farms

10/06/2026

🌿 The most satisfying tool in the shed.

Finn and the Makita XGT earth auger making light work of what would otherwise be a very long afternoon with a spade.

Holes drilled, plants going in, job done. Winter planting is underway across Wellington and the soil temperatures are still on our side. 💚

— this one's for you. 🤙

08/06/2026

Mophead and lacecap hydrangeas are pruned the same way and timing is everything. ✂️

These flower on last year's wood, so prune too hard or too early and you sacrifice the whole display. In Wellington we wait until late summer to early winter, once flowering has fully finished.

It's less of a hard prune, more of a tidy. Cut spent flowers back to a healthy pair of buds, and remove a few of the oldest stems at the base each year to keep new growth coming through. Finish with a copper and oil spray to manage cotton scale and powdery mildew.

Get this right and you'll have a full display again next season. 🌸

🌿 Rain or shine. Mostly rain today.Short week, wet finish. But the work never stops and the GVG team have been out in it...
05/06/2026

🌿 Rain or shine. Mostly rain today.

Short week, wet finish. But the work never stops and the GVG team have been out in it all day, gumboots on, rain gear on, heads down.

And honestly? The gardens have never looked better for it.

While we were out across Wellington and the Hutt this week the winter garden was putting on a show. Camellias dropping their petals in the most beautiful way, clivia firing up in deep orange under the trees, hellebores quietly doing their thing in the shade, and even a lacecap hydrangea still going strong.

Winter in Wellington's gardens. There's always something worth stopping for. 💚

Have a great weekend everyone, the team have well and truly earned theirs. 🌧️

📍 Wellington

🌹 It's officially winter. But put the secateurs down for now.These roses clearly didn't get the memo and we're not compl...
02/06/2026

🌹 It's officially winter. But put the secateurs down for now.

These roses clearly didn't get the memo and we're not complaining.

This week marks the first week of winter, and this Wellington garden is still absolutely covered in blooms. What you're looking at is a cascading pillar rose — the same variety grafted multiple times onto a single central stem, creating that extraordinary, abundant flush of colour all at once. A gardener's dream and a genuine statement piece.

And it is far from finished.

This is exactly why we don't prune by the calendar.

Prune too early in a warm winter like this and the plant thinks spring has arrived. It pushes new soft growth immediately and when the real cold arrives in July that new growth takes the hit. You've also cut off weeks of flowering for nothing.

What to do instead right now:
🌹 Keep deadheading spent blooms to encourage the plant to keep producing
🌹 Stay on top of powdery mildew and black spot — warm humid conditions this time of year are perfect for both.

When to prune:
Wait until July at the earliest.
Ideally when you're seeing consistent cold nights, the plant is visibly slowing, and the sap has properly dropped. That's when a winter prune does what it's supposed to do.

Read the plant. Not the calendar. 💚

📍 Wellington



🌿 Week in the Garden - autumn is going out in style. 🍂 Wellington has been giving us some absolutely stunning days to en...
29/05/2026

🌿 Week in the Garden - autumn is going out in style. 🍂

Wellington has been giving us some absolutely stunning days to end the season, clear blue skies, crisp air, and that golden light that makes every garden look incredible. Winter is just around the corner but this week it didn't feel like it.

We kicked off the week trimming these large olive standard topiary — ladders out, steady hands, working from the top down. The kind of job that takes time to do properly and looks effortless when it's done.

Kristina and Emma have been absolutely smashing it across the Hutt Valley this week — really proud of the work coming out of that team. 💚

Tim and Finn had a big week planting at one of our embassy contracts in the city, getting new plants established while the soil temperatures are still on our side.

They also got stuck into some seriously overgrown climbing roses mid-week, scaffolding out for some early winter pruning. That double thumbs up tells you everything about how it went. 🌹

Over at Woodcote the early morning frost light across the lawn was something else entirely.

And out in the gardens this week, camellias are opening and the mānuka is flowering. Whatever the season, there's always something beautiful to find. 💚

📍 Wellington

✂️ Topiary Tuesday — Japanese Buxus done properly.This is Buxus microphylla japonica and it's one of our favourite plant...
26/05/2026

✂️ Topiary Tuesday — Japanese Buxus done properly.

This is Buxus microphylla japonica and it's one of our favourite plants to work with. Smaller leaved than common buxus, incredibly dense, and it holds a sculpted form better than almost anything else in the garden.

Yesterday we trimmed up this topiary form centerpiece at a private Wellington property. White roses still going in the foreground, blue Wellington sky behind. Not a bad office view.

Why Japanese buxus works so well for sculptural topiary:
🌿 Smaller leaves mean finer, tighter detail work
🌿 Dense branching structure holds shape longer between cuts
🌿 Responds beautifully to repeated trimming and gets better every year
🌿 More resilient to blight than common buxus

The key with a statement piece like this is patience. This kind of form takes years to develop and a steady hand to maintain. Little and often, always on a cool overcast day. 💚

What do you think — classic or too sculptural for your garden?

📍 Wellington

21/05/2026

☕ Fully committed to the battery platform.

Jug. Cup. Cooler. All 40V. All Makita.
We didn't set out to power smoko with the same battery as the hedge trimmers. And yet here we are.

Chilly Wellington mornings sorted. we owe you one. 🤙

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Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm
Thursday 8:30am - 5pm
Friday 8:30am - 5pm

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