Phil Oster CITATION

Mihi to Phil

Read by Andy Hamilton, President, GDSNZ

E hoa, tena rawa at-u koe.

My friend, thank you so much

E tu ana ahau i runga i te ngakau kotahi o te hunga katoa i konei i tenei ra, kite whakaputa i a matou mihi nui ki a koe.

I stand here today, on behalf of everyone present, to express our great appreciation of you.

He pou koe no to tatou hapori. 

You are a pillar of our society.

He nui te koa i kawea mai e to whakakatakata ki a matou i nga tau e hia nei 

Your humour has brought LIS so tr1uch joy over the years

Haere kite whakaheke ngaru, kia nui ake ai te wa e parekareka ai koe. 

Go and enjoy more time surfing my friend.

E kore matou e mutu te whakawhetai ki a koe. 

We are forever grateful.

No reira, tena koe e hoa. 

Thank you my friend

Best A.

Introduction

It is with great pleasure and immense gratitude that the Garden Design Society of New Zealand tonight confers Life Membership upon Phil Oster. This award recognises Phil's outstanding, long-standing service, his unwavering institutional stewardship, and his deep-seated commitment to the growth and financial stability of our Society.

Service and Contribution to GDSNZ

Phil joined the National Committee in 2006. He took on the role of Treasurer in June 2007. Tonight, Phil delivered his 19th Treasurer's report and Membership report. That's nineteen years of dedication to dollars and sense!

Officially Phil's Job Description has been 'Financial control and management of the GDSNZ national accounts and regular reporting at national committee meetings. Membership administration and records management'

In actuality, Phil's role as Treasurer meant that he has handled everything to do with finances including managing our bank accounts, creating term deposits to ensure any monies in accounts was earning interest, arranging signatories and the transition to online banking. And that's once we had the funds. In order to get funds, Phil was responsible for creating and sending out invoices to every member. Back in 2007 this was via individual emails -with an excel spreadsheet the primary tool for keeping track of every members' details.

This excel spreadsheet was our tool for managing our membership. The creating of new members' and saving an individual's details, the constant amendments and changes to these details, the creation of new excel sheets for memberships on hold and new members was a time consuming and painstaking job and Phil did this manually for more than a decade!

This same spreadsheet was used to communicate to our members about upcoming events, by hand sent emails!

What is consistent looking back through Treasurer's reports, which Phil carefully prepared and delivered at every AGM, is a constant desire to improve systems and streamline processes.

In 2008, Phil is quoted as saying 'The Society is now operating an electronic/computer based book keeping system and this will be linked to membership in an effort to keep better track of our membership numbers and hence annual subscriptions due and paid. We will continue to improve the financial reporting over the coming year."

This implies that in Phil's first year in the role, he moved from a hand-written system to an electronic system! Phil has always been looking for efficiencies. Hence the suggestion and move to using Mailchimp as our communication tool.

Phil was insistent on the upgrade to using Xero as our main financial management tool which integrates to our website and Mailchimp.

Phil has been instrumental in demanding reviews and overhauls of our website - changing designers and providers three times in the decade plus since we have had an online presence. To make payments easier which was a game changer for the events team.

Since Phil took on the role of Treasurer and membership officer the membership as tripled (maybe even quadrupled) so the administration side of finances and membership has only grown and become more complex. Phil has managed to streamline this with superb efficiency. This is absolutely crucial for a society based on voluntary efforts - the more streamlined our administration is, the more time we have for our other endeavours.

Phil does not suffer fools, has wanted us to change banks from ASB for as long as we've been with them ('bloody neanderthols') and has always made the Chairperson's job at our meetings a challenge as Phil never holds back if he has an opinion or something to say- even if somebody else already has the floor!

Phil has been involved in several sub-committees over the years always wanting the best for our members - our structure, our governance - he was instrumental in getting the society 'up to date' and compliant with the changes to the Incorporated Societies Act. He was involved in the 2025 review of the Constitution of the Garden Design Society of New Zealand. And most recently contributing to the development of the Strategic Plan.

Phil has been a great supporter of events- and the Events Committee know to always add an extra bottle of red wine to the order if Phil has RSVPd yes!

Phil has always been in favour of bringing International guests to our shores and confidently getting GDSNZ to foot the bill for the benefit of our members. Bernard Trainor fmm California, Carl Cox from Australia, Michael McCoy from Melbourne, Australia, Andy Sturgeon from London and most recently Kathryn Gustafson from Paris. Phil was a big supporter of the Auckland Garden DesignFest too, knowing the benefits it offers to our members and industry.

Tonight Phil passes on the roles to Rudi in a great order. And thankfully for us all, Phil will remain involved with the society, standing again for the National Executive and available with help and to troubleshoot for Rudi.

I'm also going to share with you tonight some background to Phil that most of us didn't know! And is quite entertaining (thanks Emma!)

Phil Completed 2- yrs of Nursing studies - Decided against this as a career as he didn't want to work inside and be told what to do by old women in white hats for the rest of his working life.

He worked in fruit tree nurseries and managed an orchard, hence then completing a Bachelor of Horticulture., and working for The Rehab League in Napier assisting people back to work through horticulture

Phil moved between Wellington and Tauranga and in the early 90's moved to Auckland. Phil began his horticultural career and  Auckland Crippled Children's Society managing an Organic Market Garden, teaching students how to grow and nurture an orchard.

Phil has held various landscaping roles including concreting, and water irrigation. Also integrated with barman work at The Globe, DJ'ing and running the Bungy Jumping in Auckland City. ('Just for shits and giggles' as Phil would say).

In the mid 90s Phil landed his first major role at Natural Habitats, working his way up to Team Leader and then Project Manager. Responsible for major growth and doubling of turnover, introducing sales packages and on-selling products with new clients and projects such as Universal Home developments over Auckland.

Phil moved to Australia in 1999 for a Project Management role, running $2-3m AUD projects in Adelaide, returning to New Zealand in the early 2000s to start his own

company- Rescape Land Designs, quickly known as RLD. Phil ran this company for 17-years performing landscaping design and construction.

Anything unusual and challenging was always of interest, in particular steep or difficult access changes, curving boardwalks or difficult stairways and pools. Phil just loved changing and improving people's use of their space and took pride in developing property owners' knowledge of their plants and gardens.

Phil and fellow GDSNZ member Eva Zombori won SILVER for their own built 'designer garden creation' at the Ellerslie Flower Show in 2008.

Large rural properties were a passion, the largest one being over 5 years in development. This client also happened to buy a property in Little Bay where Phil spent his summers for the first 18 years of his life. He landscaped this remote hilltop property too.

In 2004 met Em/Emma at The Whiskey Bar on Ponsonby Rd. Long funny story of connections and people, in how they both came to be there involving a $5,000 bar tab and mutual friends. On this night a friend introduced Phil to Emma, followed by the line

... "Fuck he knows his trees". A standing line that's been in constant use ever since..

In December 2005 Phil and Emma travelled together through Amazon (a place he had wanted to go from 6 years of age!), to Brazil, then Peru - climbing Machu Picchu, Huyana Picchu and 8 weeks in Cuba for a kayaking trip and independent travel.

Following travel Phil & Emma bought first house together, raised 2 beautiful humans who are here tonight - Warner (2008) and Mia {2010) finally getting married in 2014, on a beach. I will never forget Phil turning up to a National committee meeting with his white hair dyed black 'especially for the wedding photos so his hair didn't disappear into the background' ...

Phil completed his a Graduate Diploma in Rural Studies in 1995 and a Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Management in 2017 from Massey University. This study led to his role at Auckland City Council and his current position now as Senior Urban Forester.

According to Emma, Phil has an undying dedication to the care of our planet He is principle-based and will always fight for what is right

He does not follow rules 

He Knows his trees! Ha.

He knows the Consumer Guarantees Act backwards and will never be ripped off. He shops and chooses clothes by texture, nothing to do with colour/match/appearance.

He has a photographic memory and extensive knowledge of everything- from horticulture to engineering and construction, science & nursing, medical & biology. Loves world history and geography, surfing, weather, NZ landscape history and world geography. He loves photography and music.

He's a dog whisperer

Phil has a proactive approach to everything he does.

He'll pick up the phone, have a conversation and gets things sorted!

He builds solid working relationships - is trusted, and has extensive knowledge

... and always a different way of thinking

... and always a-healthy dollop of humour :::-

From colleague and fellow national executive member Margaret Lenehan:

Phil joined Auckland Council as a specialist advisor (arboriculture/landscape) forthe Parks Planning team who are part of Parks and Community Facilities department. PCF are the Kaitiaki (guardians) of Auckland Council's portfolio of assets ranging from community buildings & pools to open spaces like our parks, regional parks, sports parks and campgrounds. Parks Planning in collaboration with other teams oversee the planning, building & maintenance of new open space assets by third parties for council. This typically includes develop of new parks and playgrounds, walkways, riparian planting in esplanade & drainage reserves, street landscaping including street trees, rain gardens and amenity plantings.

During this time, Phil single handedly advocated for the use of fully biodegradable geotextiles such as Hussain reinforced Biocoir coconut matting and wool matting to be used across all projects and particularly in large scale riparian planting projects. Using products that do not contain polyethylene or polypropylene which does not fully breakdown was a great win and initially involved a huge change in mindset across the industry & council. The requirement to use biodegradable materials has since been written into the Auckland Council Code of Practice and due in huge part to Phil's conviction that this was the right thing to do. He was absolutely relentless in demanding third parties and council's own contractors eliminate this material from products commonly used in the landscaping industry.

Plants and grass are to be maintained in a weed-free state throughout the installation and establishment periods (as indicated in Section 7.5). Weeds may be controlled by good design, using matting that is 100% biodegradable a minimum of 700 g/m2 that doesn't contain polyethylene or polypropylene based products (which can also prevent erosion), hand weeding, mulching or chemical sprays. Auckland Council discourages lane/scape designs which are prone to weed infestation, mana whenua support the use of hand-weeding.

He also presented a paper at the Green Pavlova conference. (something on calming effects of the environment on the mind I think). From Emma 'the Neuronic Parks thing ... that was his own concept, and development of idea, a way of developing parks to be completely intertwined with living spaces (city living). By using the basis of regeneration and flexibility of neural pathways to link the rural through the urban to the coasts, increasing canopy and ground cover and use of green spaces within daily living etc etc. Then he moved to Urban Forest Team as a senior Urban Forest specialist.

Key aspects of The Urban Forest team's work include:

Tree planting & maintenance: choosing, planting & caring for urban trees in order to contribute to the city's overall green infrastructure, climate resilience, community wellbeing, biodiversity & habitat.

Phil has always been very generous with his time and knowledge and has wide ranging interests across a number of topics closely and not so closely related to his field of expertise.

Conclusion

While garden design celebrates the visible beauty of our landscape, a successful society relies heavily on the invisible infrastructure beneath the soil. Phil Oster has been that vital infrastructure for GDSNZ. He has given his time, his professional expertise, and his unwavering dedication to the society- to all of us.

For his extraordinary dedication, his financial guardianship, and his exemplary service to the landscape and garden design industry, we proudly award Phil Oster Life Membership to the Garden Design Society of New Zealand.

Read out on the occasion of the 23rd AGM of GDSNZ, Tuesday 16th June 2026, Awarding Life Membership, GDSNZ to Phil Oster.

Prepared and read by GDSNZ Vice-President Debbie Hardy.