My name’s Grant Ellison. I’ve spent the past 12 years buying, renting out and personally maintaining rental properties around Tawa, on the northern edge of Wellington. When I bought my first rental here, the section had a garden a previous owner had clearly loved: rhododendrons, a couple of ornamental maples, roses along the fence. It looked great in the sale photos.
Two years later I was paying a gardener $180 a visit just to stop it turning into a jungle, and the tenant couldn’t have cared less about the roses. That’s when I started choosing plants the way I choose everything else on a rental: by what it costs to run and what it actually gives back.
The native-versus-exotic argument usually gets fought over looks or ecology. I fight it over maintenance cost and durability, because that’s what matters when you own the section but don’t live on it. Here’s how the two stack up on a Tawa-style section, and where I’ve landed after a few properties’ worth of trial and error.
What natives cost me once they’re established
For a rental, or any section you don’t want to fuss over, natives win on running costs. I’ve planted flax, coprosma, hebe, pittosporum and cabbage trees across several properties, and after the first year they mostly look after themselves. It’s the low-maintenance native landscaping approach I now default to on anything I’m renting out, rather than the high-input exotic borders I started with.
- Wind tolerance: Tawa gets wind funnelled up the valley, and natives like flax and akeake shrug it off where a Japanese maple just gets shredded.
- Water: Established natives get through a dry summer with no irrigation, so there’s no water bill and no dead plants when nobody’s around to water them.
- Maintenance: A native border might need one tidy-up a year. That’s the gap between one $180 gardener visit annually and one every few weeks.
The catch is the establishment phase. Natives can look sparse and unimpressive for the first 18 months, and you still need to weed and water them until the roots take. Budget $12 to $25 per PB3 grade plant, and expect to lose a few along the way — that’s just part of the deal with drought-tolerant planting on a new site.
Where exotics still earn their place
I’m not anti-exotic. There are jobs natives don’t do well. If you want fast privacy screening, a row of griselinia (technically a native, but it behaves like a hedge plant) or a deciduous hedge grows quicker and denser than most true natives. If you want autumn colour or a productive garden, exotics are the answer — fruit trees, deciduous shade trees and a proper vege patch all lift the appeal of an owner-occupied home in a way a native border alone won’t.
The trade-off is upkeep. Deciduous trees mean gutters full of leaves every autumn. Roses and ornamentals need spraying, pruning and feeding. On a section where someone’s actively gardening, that’s a hobby. On a rental, it’s a cost centre. For an exposed, windy Tawa site, survival matters more than looks, which is why I keep coming back to what’s actually proven to cope — I wrote up the detail in landscaping a windy Wellington section: what actually survives.
The 70/30 mix I plant now
These days I don’t sit in one camp. My standard planting plan is roughly 70 percent hardy natives for the bones of the garden and the exposed edges, and 30 percent well-chosen exotics for the spots people actually see and use — a native shelterbelt or backdrop, then a few deciduous trees or a hedge near the outdoor living area.
| Item | Detail | Typical figure |
|---|---|---|
| PB3 grade native plant | Cost per plant | $12–$25 |
| Established native border | Ongoing maintenance | About one tidy-up per year |
| High-maintenance exotic garden | Gardener visits | $180 per visit, every few weeks |
| Native establishment period | Time to look settled | Around 18 months |
| Modest front-garden replant (native-heavy mix) | Cost incl. GST | $1,500–$4,000 |
| High-maintenance exotic garden | Ongoing annual cost | $2,000+ per year |
On a Tawa front garden, a modest replant with a mix like this runs me $1,500 to $4,000 including GST for plants and labour, depending on size. Compare that to the $2,000-plus a year a high-maintenance exotic garden can quietly cost in gardener visits, and the low-input mix pays for itself within a couple of years. If you want help getting species and placement right for your soil and exposure, a landscaping specialist in the Lynmore area is worth the conversation. For the wider picture on what actually suits our soils and climate, Greater Wellington Regional Council publishes solid planting guidance and native plant advice.
Questions I get asked about Tawa gardens
Are native plants really cheaper to maintain than exotics? Yes. Once established, most lower North Island natives need little water and only an annual tidy, while exotics like roses and deciduous ornamentals need regular pruning, spraying and leaf clean-up. Over a few years the maintenance saving on natives is substantial — it’s the difference between one $180 gardener visit a year and one every few weeks.
Should I rip out an established exotic garden or just manage it? Depends on the spot. On an exposed, wind-hammered edge of the section that nobody sits in, I’ll usually replace exotics with hardy natives over time rather than keep paying to prop them up. In sheltered spots near the house or outdoor living area, where a tenant or owner-occupier actually sees and uses the garden, it’s often worth keeping a few exotics and just budgeting for the upkeep.
What natives handle Tawa’s wind best? Flax, akeake, coprosma, pittosporum, hebe and cabbage trees all cope well with the wind that funnels up the valley. They establish tough and don’t get shredded the way exotic ornamentals like Japanese maples do on exposed sites.
How much does replanting a lower North Island rental garden cost? A modest front-garden replant with a native-heavy mix runs about $1,500 to $4,000 including GST for plants and labour, depending on the size of the section. Individual PB3 grade plants cost roughly $12 to $25 each, on top of that.