Ted Smyth will go down in history as one of New Zealand’s best-known and most unconventional characters of garden design with his own very distinct style. Designing awarding-winning gardens for fifty years, his unique body of work is recognized in countless international books and publications, including the Harvard Design Magazine. In 2017 a monograph entitled The Modern Gardens of Ted Smyth was published by Routledge. Authored by Rod Barnett and Jacqueline Margetts it is the first book solely dedicated to a New Zealand landscape architect.

A generation of garden designers has been influenced by Smyth’s work. Beautiful, crisp, elegant, and
instantly recognizable, this style has stood the test of time, continuing to fascinate and move people
with its sophistication and clarity of purpose. Ted Smyth’s striking use of plants as sculptural forms,
his innovative combinations of stainless steel and neon, and his distinctive technique of visually
linking planes of water to seascapes and countryside are characteristics that have been trend-setters
both in Aotearoa NZ and throughout the world of modern landscape design. Ted often majored on a
palette of NZ native plants.
He has a wealth of experience and knowledge as a planting designer/manager as well as in landscape construction and a special interest in creating beautiful and bio-diverse gardens for plants and wildlife, green walls and roofs, integrating ornamental plants and food growing with ecological gardens. Nick's gardens are 'pollinator paradises' providing foraging and shelter for the many beneficial insects that visit gardens.

Nick also project manages planning issues and resource consent applications, and gives advice on tree care and management, resolving the apparent conflicts between the beauty and ecological value of large trees and the desire for sunlight and space in and around buildings.