10 Feb 2022

Secret Gardens connecting gardening fanatics with gardens

From Afternoons, 1:40 pm on 10 February 2022

As people become more creative about earning money under strict Covid-19 rules, Jane Mahoney has found a way to help keen gardeners all over New Zealand monetise their hobby.

In November she launched a website called Secret Gardens, which is best described as a garden version of Airbnb.

Mahoney tells Jesse Mulligan how the site works and how it's been going since launching last November.

Mahoney has always been a garden buff and when she realised gardening was going through an immense resurgence of interest over last couple of years, it occurred to her there was a wealth of knowledge locked up behind people’s garden gates.

“This was just of way of connecting gardeners and people who want to learn,” she says.

The Secret Gardens website offers a curated collection of gardens, featuring owners who have indicated an interest in sharing their labours of love.

Visiting and talking to these property owners gives fellow gardeners the opportunity to pick up skills and ideas and be inspired to replicate these in their own green spaces.

Each garden offers something for everyone, Mahoney says.

“Once you’re on the site if you’re interested in finding out more about how to create a food forest or how to grow dahlias, or whatever you’re interested in you can browse the gardens on the website, book a visit and pop along and meet the gardener, spend an hour with them around their garden and learn.”

A lot of the garden hosts run workshops on their specialist areas. These include flower farms offering boutique-making workshops and permaculture gardens where you can learn to make your own liquid fertilisers and build swales.

“The reaction has been amazing really. It has totally exceeded by expectations," she says. "For me the real mark of its success has been the amazing feedback that we get back from the visitors who are going to see the garden and come away inspired, but also the hosts who are running the visits, they are getting so much from it too.

“It’s a real two-way street and they just love that like-minded people are getting to enjoy the fruits of their labour and inspire the next generation of gardeners.”

The ventures are businesses, but more so a way of connecting and sharing things in common.

“It was important to recognise the value of people’s input… but yeah people are really driven by the love of it and wanting to share the passion,” Mahoney says.

Gardens don't need to be big either, just special. A case in point would be Green Hills Paradise garden.

“There’s a little 200sq/m garden in a sub-division in Coromandel township and she’s pretty much ripped up her lawn and planted a food forest, so really living the good life.”

There’s a shortage of gardens in the big centres, including Auckland, with population density and development of housing increasingly squeezing out other types of land use.

“We’ve only got 12 gardens across the country at the moment, but of course our vision is to create a network of gardens right throughout the country. We’re a bit short in Wellington as well, so we’d love to hear from some Wellington gardeners," she says.

Mahoney is encouraging gardeners who want to get involved to contact her and take it from there.

“Pop on to our website and have a look. All of our contact details are there. So if people are interested in becoming a host then they can get in touch with us," she says.

“Definitely we’ve got a couple of people who are in that retirement bracket who we’re providing, not just an income but also something to put their energy into. Also a couple of our gardeners are really quite self-sufficient and again it’s a nice little extra way that they can make a living from their land.”