best native plants for small gardens
Creating a beautiful, low-maintenance outdoor space is easy with the right selection of plants, especially when you're working with a smaller garden footprint. Choosing the best native plants for small gardens not only ensures your garden thrives in the local environment, but also helps support native biodiversity and reduce maintenance. Whether you want colourful foliage, year-round interest, or robust ground covers, native plants offer the perfect solution for compact spaces across New Zealand.
Leptospermum 'Wairere'
Leptospermum 'Wairere' is a hardy evergreen shrub admired for its dense foliage and masses of attractive flowers through spring and summer. This versatile manuka variety adds year round texture, colour, and native character to NZ gardens while also attracting pollinators such as bees and birds. Its compact and bushy growth habit makes it ideal for hedging, borders, coastal planting, and feature shrub use. Leptospermum 'Wairere' is easy to grow, low maintenance, and highly effective for creating resilient and colourful landscape plantings.
From $26.93
Pimelea mimosa
Pimelea mimosa is a mat forming, NZ native, ground covering plant. It has soft, blue-grey leaves which are held on stems that tend to climb over objects. The plant becomes adorned with tiny, white flowers during summer. This evergreen typically grows to 30 cm tall and 80 cm wide, and performs best when grown in full sun on a well-drained soil. Pimelea mimosa is commonly used as a groundcover, added to coastal plantings, included in cottage gardens, planted around outdoor living areas, or mass planted on a bank.
From $23.63
