72 | Award treble caps off a stellar year Onlandscapes has taken out the Master Landscapers Association’s Landscapes of Distinction People’s Choice Award, winning the title in 2023 for the third time in a row. Onlandscapes T T Hugh de Lacy LANDSCAPING Christchurch company Onlandscapes has all but taken a mortgage out on the Master Landscapers Association’s Landscapes of Distinction People’s Choice Award, winning the title in 2023 for the third time in a row. And to top off a stellar year, Juliet and Ollie Newman’s company did the landscaping for the Supreme Award winner of the Master Builders Association’s 2023 House of the Year Awards. “Winning the People’s Choice Award three years in a row has got us absolutely stoked – it really tickled our fancy,” Ollie says. With a staff of up to 15 skilled workers, Onlandscapes takes on some new-build landscape projects but most of the company’s work comes from renovating existing gardens on established properties, and given Christchurch people’s love of their gardens – they don’t call it the Garden City for nothing – the Newmans are never short of work. The latest People’s Choice award winner was a project on Clyde Road that Onlandscapes first worked on some years ago, while in 2022 it was a property in Rugby Street, and in 2021 a Thorrington Street project. “Generally we work to professional designers’ landscape designs, but increasingly we’re offering our own designs, and that’s something we want to get into more. “There is some tremendous talent coming out of the universities, and we’re keen to tap into that. “We already have a very active apprenticeship programme under the Primary ITO’s three-year landscape qualifications: we’ve got two apprentices at a moment, and a third who’s just completed his time,” he says. With basic plant that includes a digger, Onlandscapes builds the likes of block and timber walls, decks and pergolas, lays paving and both natural and artificial lawns, does stone-work and installs irrigation. Ollie first got interested in landscaping by weeding the gardens at his parents’ Christchurch home, deriving such satisfaction from it that the idea of making a career of it “Winning the People’s Choice Award three years in a row has got us absolutely stoked – it really tickled our fancy.” persisted even when he went to university intending to study valuation and property management. But then he met Juliet whose aunt and uncle, Lynda and Jamie Laurenson, ran a landscaping company called The Enchanted Garden, for which Ollie used to work part-time. He found he liked the work so much that he quit university to go landscaping full-time, setting up Onlandscapes on his 31st birthday in October 2009. The company’s first job was installing irrigation for an elderly woman who paid him in home-made jam – not the most encouraging revenue for a new company, “but you’ve got to start somewhere,” Ollie says. Fourteen years later Onlandscapes is a thriving business catering to “some great people, often self-made, with whom we form really strong relationships – and that’s what I love about it. “People put a lot of trust in us, and that adds to the satisfaction.” Onlandscapes serves a Christchurch market which has been consistently strong despite the Covid pandemic interruptions, and a property sector still keen on landscaping despite being in the doldrums over the past couple of years. www.gardenmakers.co.nz Open 7 days Mon-Sat 7.15am-5pm Sun 8am-4pm Phone: 03 341 5688 | 4 Parkhouse Rd, Sockburn, Christchurch Firewood & landscape supplies we supply & deliver 0800 800 005 • skips@containerwaste.co.nz • www.containerwaste.co.nz Are proud to work with Onlandscapes supplying all their waste and recycling requirements
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