Xanthe White has designed the 100% Pure New Zealand Garden. In putting together the garden for Chelsea Xanthe is being assisted by a small team, including Philip Smith, Plantsman

Designer, Xanthe White

Xanthe White is a leading landscape designer and gardening personality in New Zealand. The 29-year-old multi-award-winning designer studied landscape design at UNITEC in Auckland before setting up her own company, Earthroom Landscapes, in 2000. As well as specialising in urban residential designs, she has starred in three series of the television garden makeover show Groundforce and she presented The Ultimate Garden in 2004.

White won a silver medal on debut at the 2003 Ellerslie Flower Show and scooped the prestigious Judges’ Supreme Award for Design Excellence, the People’s Choice Award and the Judges’ Supreme Award for Lighting Excellence at the 2004 Ellerslie Flower Show. In 2005 she was commissioned to design Ellerslie’s showpiece 1200-sqm marquee which traced the development of New Zealand’s unique garden style.

Tourism New Zealand selected White to design the 100% Pure New Zealand Garden at the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show after a nationwide call for entries.

Plantsman, Philip Smith

Philip Smith is an up-and-coming New Zealand landscape designer who specialises in the use of rare and unusual indigenous plants within a contemporary framework. The 28-year-old director of 02 Landscapes qualified with a Bachelor of Horticulture from Massey University and gained experience working on gardens designed by visionary subtropical designer Ted Smyth before launching his own business. In 2001, Smith gained valuable experience in commercial horticulture at Europe’s largest export nursery, Bruns, in northwest Germany.

Smith’s debut show garden at the 2004 Ellerslie Flower Show in Auckland was awarded a Judges’ Special Commendation for Horticultural Excellence and he collaborated with Xanthe White to create the showpiece grand marquee at the 2005 Ellerslie Flower Show.

Smith also collects and propagates endangered New Zealand plants.

Plantsman, UK, James Fraser

James Fraser is an expatriate New Zealand garden designer. In 1990 he established Avant Gardener in London, offering garden design, construction and maintenance services.

Fraser has carved a reputation as an innovative contemporary designer who uses a unique collection of 400 species of plants. In 2000 he exhibited at the renowned International Festival of Gardens at Chaumont-sur-Loire in France and his designs have featured in the Sunday Telegraph and Gardens Illustrated.

Sculptor, Virginia King

One of New Zealand’s leading contemporary sculptors, Virginia King’s work is about ecology and survival, and the delicate balance between sustainability and progress. To draw attention to the fragility of life forms, she enhances their natural scale, working predominantly with salvaged timbers, cast bronze and laser-cut stainless steel. Awarded an Antarctic Artist Fellowship in 1999, King travelled to Antarctica, producing on her return Antarctic Heart - magnified sculptures of diatoms, the vulnerable algae at the beginning of the food chain. Her work is the subject of the new book Virginia King Sculptor (David Bateman Ltd, 2005).

Glass Artist, Dermot Kelly

Glass artist Dermot Kelly spent more than 400 hours crafting the chiselled glass rills and laminated glass pond for the 100% Pure New Zealand Garden at the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show. Kelly, a full-time sculptor and curator, runs the Glass Gallery and Sculpture Garden at Mahurangi West, north of Auckland. As well as private commissions, his recent public works include an 18-month project restoring the stained glass windows in Auckland’s historic Town Hall and designing giant glass domes for the new Britomart transport centre in downtown Auckland.

Design Assistant, Fiona Henderson

Fiona Henderson, 33, is a qualified horticulturist. She has been passionate about plants for 15 years and has worked as a landscaper in Auckland and London. Fiona has worked alongside Xanthe White for the past six years.