Green fingered nurseryman Alan Watson of Ashburton created an Eastern-inspired oasis in the backyard of his Allenton home.
Plantings include Acer palmatum varieties and cultivars, kalmias and other unusual trees and plants. It features covered walkways, gazebos, arched red bridges, lanterns and stone towers.
And now Alan has been named a 2025 Fellow of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture.
It was a surprising, and emotional, accolade for the 73-year-old.
‘‘I never expected it. You don’t expect it,’’ Alan said.
‘‘I’m pretty honoured and humbled; to be rewarded for your lifetime efforts, it’s really special.’’
Alan has become one of just a handful of Ashburtonians to earn the title.
Those before him include Alan Trott, Ian Soper and Dave Askin.
‘‘When I got it I was pretty upset,’’ Alan said.
‘‘You just don’t expect it, do you.’’
During his career, Alan has volunteered at Trott’s Garden, a New Zealand Garden of International Acclaim and led trips to Mt Hutt to photograph and study alpine plants.
He helped renowned landscape gardener David Hobbs with the initial tree planting and totara hedging for the development of Broadfield Garden, near Christchurch, now a six-star Garden of International Significance.
In 2002, after moving to Allenton, Alan established his own garden in his spare time.
‘‘I grassed the section down because I was working, and then I just started in the corner and did a bit as time allowed it.
“I might do a bit one year, do a bit the next year, nothing the next year, just expanded it out over time.’’
It featured last year in NZ Life & Leisure magazine.
Alan said his backyard plantings included a mixture of maples, choice trees and shrubs.
Choice trees were those which were hard to come by or hard to source.
His favourite was a Sciadopitys verticillata or Japanese umbrella pine, which grew next to the walkway viewed from his living room.
‘‘I wanted a theme of some sort … and chose the Asian theme because I could incorporate maples that I like and spend time doing structures, building.’’
Alan said a builder made the basic tea house and walkway structures at the rear of the 1040sqm section, and over the years he had embellished them.
He said he has completed his backyard project as there was no more room to expand on.
Plantings include a 4m tall maple tree, golden weeping willow, Chilean Bell Flowers or Lapageria rosea, dwarf conifers, Japanese Splurge or Pachysandra terminalis ground cover and varieties of Calico bush or Kalmia latifolia in pinks, reds through to whites.
‘‘They’re hard to grow but pretty choice. Well-worth persevering with, if you can get them to grow here.’’
They gave a colourful display in full bloom.
Over the years, Alan has hosted a variety of groups to his garden in spring and summer, which were welcomed by arrangement, he said.
He said his nomination for a fellowship with the Institute was by his long-time friend Alan Jolliffe of Christchurch, the current institute president.
It is the latest highlight in a career that started from inspiration as a youth during Christmas holidays in Nelson.
‘‘I went to Nelson in the school holidays picking raspberries and I wandered through the forests up there and just liked the trees – outdoors and the trees.
‘‘I thought I would get a job in Ashburton doing something (along those lines) and got a job, an apprenticeship, with Allenton Nurseries.’’
Alan began his apprenticeship and joined the RNZIH in Dec 1970. He completed his Trade Certificate in 1973, and continued study towards the RNZIH National Diploma in Horticulture.
He has worked at Allenton Nurseries, Duncan and Davies Nursery, and Millichamps Nursery to gain experience in a range of horticultural and production techniques.
He established his own nursery in 1978 on a property in Ashburton specialising in garden shrubs and dwarf conifers.
He also undertook tree pruning, lawn laying, contract tree planting and other gardening work including travel around Mid Canterbury giving pruning demonstrations.
