The Landscaping Guide

My aunty in Roslyn, one of the hill suburbs above Dunedin, rang me almost in tears last winter about her new driveway. She’d had it poured in May, pleased with herself for getting in before the tradies got busy, and by August it had a web of fine cracks with the surface flaking off in…

A few years back I picked up a rental in Papamoa, one of the new subdivisions that keeps marching east along the Bay of Plenty coast. The section came with a standard concrete driveway, and the first proper downpour showed me exactly why the neighbours had been grumbling: sheets of water running straight off every…

My name’s Doug Fraser. I’ve spent the better part of eighteen years pouring and finishing concrete around Dunedin and out into the hill suburbs, and my own brother is one of the people who rings me first when a job goes sideways. He lives up in Mornington, and last winter he had a concrete pad…

My brother-in-law lives in Hokowhitu, and last spring he spent about six weeks agonising over his new driveway. Not over whether to use concrete, that was settled, but over whether to pay the extra for exposed aggregate or stick with a plain broom-finished slab. He rang me twice a week with a new argument each…

My name’s Grant, and after the better part of twenty years dropping trees and running a digger around the Manawatū, I still spend a fair chunk of my time sorting out driveways before I can even get a chipper or a truck onto a block. I’ve bogged a tip truck in a paddock more than…

My name’s Dave, and I’ve spent close to twenty years pouring concrete around Palmerston North – driveways, patios, the odd shed slab. My brother-in-law lives out in Mosgiel, just outside Dunedin, and when his cracked old driveway finally gave up he rang me first, because I’m the one in the family who’s always price-checking tradies…

My brother-in-law lives out in Awapuni, and last autumn he rang me up in a right state. He’d had three driveway quotes back and they were thousands of dollars apart, and he wanted to know which one of the buggers was ripping him off. I’ve been laying concrete around Palmerston North and the wider Manawatū…