Considered Pruning.
Trees, Hedges & Topiary.

Specialist care and shaping of landscape trees, hedges and topiary across Whangārei and Northland.

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Pruning, clipping and shaping for established gardens, from Whangārei Heads to Maunu and beyond. Horticultural knowledge first, with a designer's eye for form.

  • A neatly trimmed hedge with round bushes in the foreground, a chain-link fence, and tall trees in the background.

    Entrance Globes

  • Backyard with swimming pool, lounge chairs, umbrellas, lush bushes and trees under a clear blue sky, and a stone house wall on the right.

    Runway Olives

  • A lush, green garden with a variety of bushes and trees, surrounded by open fields in the background.

    Layered views

  • A backyard garden scene with lush green plants, bushes, and trees under a blue sky with scattered clouds. There are wooden steps and a gravel pathway.

    Dry Garden Forms

  • A lush green landscape with a well-manicured lawn in the foreground, various shrubs and trees, and a backdrop of mountains under a cloudy sky.

    Borrowed Scenery

  • Lush green bushes and plants with a house roof and chimney visible in the distance under a partly cloudy sky, seen through overhanging tree branches.

    Clipped Clouds

  • Garden with trimmed bushes, leafless trees, green grass, and a clear blue sky.

    XLarge Globes

How I Work

Most gardens I take on need two things.
First, a structural reset to bring form and vitality back to mature specimens. Then once the structure is set, Annual Care is the ongoing seasonal approach that enhances the gardens form year on year.

The Reset

A defined first-year restoration. It's typically two to six days of structural work, spread across the right seasonal windows, with a written scope and a fixed project fee. Wonky or patchy hedges and woody, leggy shrubs are brought back. Congested specimen trees are thinned, opened and reduced where needed. Topiary is returned to its desired form. The result is a garden whose structure can hold itself.

Quoted from a site visit.
Most Resets fall between $1,800 and $4,000 depending on scope.

Annual Care

An ongoing relationship with a small roster of gardens I hold to a seasonal calendar. Four to twelve visits a year, seasonally timed to the pruning windows of the plants on site, with a fixed annual fee invoiced monthly. One steady set of eyes and hands in your garden every season, year round. Most clients move here after the Reset.

From $4,000 per year.

Specialist Pruning

One-off project commissions outside the Reset or Annual Care. Creating a sculptural specimen tree from mature stock. Reducing and restoring hedging. Shaping new topiary, or bringing old topiary back to form. Restoring vitality and yield to neglected fruit trees and orchards. Formative pruning of recently installed landscapes to set the structure and carry the design intent as the garden grows in. Comprehensive tidy and presentation of pre-listing homes. Priced as a defined scope after a site visit.

Quoted from a site visit.

Garden Consultation

A 90-minute site visit with a detailed de-brief and written year-ahead plan; where the garden is at, what the garden needs, in what season, in what order, and what it’ll cost.

Useful if you're not sure where to start, or you want a professional set of eyes before committing to any of the above.

$395 flat fee within 45 minutes of Parua Bay
Credited against any Annual Care plan started within 30 days

Who I Work With

Most of my clients are long-term owners of established gardens, with formal hedging, topiary and mature specimen trees, who want the garden kept and refined rather than redesigned. Some are new owners who've inherited a garden that needs restructuring or ongoing professional care. Others live overseas for part of the year and need a consistent pair of eyes they trust.

A handful are lodges, Airbnbs and private orchards. Occasionally it's a landscape designer who needs a specialist for the formative stages of a local project.

Most relationships start with a Reset and move into Annual Care after the first year. Some properties only need the one restoration, and a few clients work with me on specialist projects only. We work out which path suits your garden at the site visit.

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  • "Working collaboratively with your ideas, Mitch combines technical horticultural skills with his creative vision to help you achieve a gardenscape that’s healthy, structured and beautiful."

  • "Mitch's design ideas and their execution are always elegant and understated - no surprise given the approach he exhibits."

  • "We have used The Botanical Barber for several years now and have been thrilled with his transformation and maintenance of our garden. His knowledge and expertise are exceptional and his advice has been invaluable."

  • "Mitch has been working on our large property for several years. His knowledge and understanding of all our plants and trees has been amazing. Our garden has flourished under his care."

  • "Mitch's knowledge of, and focus on plant health has improved the appearance and wellbeing of our trees and shrubs, and has increased the cropping of our fruit trees."

  • “Respect is the word which best describes Mitch’s approach to his work. He respects the plants with which he works. He respects his clients. And he respects the work environment."

  • "Mitch’s expert skills have transformed and enhanced our garden, attracting many compliments."

  • "I am always delighted to enter my garden after Mitch has been working there.”

About

Combining passion for architecture, sculpture & design with an extensive horticultural knowledge, my work shapes the relationship between people and place.


I'm Mitch. I live in the beautiful Parua Bay with my partner and young family and I work in gardens from Whangarei Heads to Maunu and beyond.

I bring over 15 years of professional horticultural experience, a working knowledge of architecture and the built environment, and a lifetime spent at the crossroads of design and nature. That combination has informed my unique approach to gardening.

Design and attention to detail are at the heart of everything I do, while creative pruning and clipping are the cornerstone techniques that allow me to define structures, balance volumes and dance between the details that matter up close and the form that matters from a distance.

“I don't divide architecture, landscape and gardening; to me they are one.”

— Luis Barragan

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A garden with green shrubbery, purple lavender flowers, tall grass, and a cloudy sky overhead.

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A shaded outdoor patio area with black folding chairs, surrounded by greenery and trees, under a wooden pergola with beams, with bright sky in the background.