Hamish Moorhead
Gardens have taken Hamish Moorhead all the way from Lincoln University to exclusive rooftop apartments in Manhattan.
Now the Wellington-based landscape architect is the judge on TV Ones new gardening series Ultimate Garden. Week by week Hamish will be called in to compare the efforts of the same four teams, as they create a garden from the ground up.
Hamish also played a hand in creating each episode's surprise challenge, which will help keep contestants on their toes as they try to build their dream garden into a cohesive whole.
"What I'll be looking for is a strong overall sense of harmony, so that the finished product isnt just a mishmash of different ideas," says the 32-year-old landscape architect. "Creative use of space is important as well, because the gardens are quite small spaces. The contestants really need to put their stamp on it."
Hamish's interest in gardening and landscape began as a child, while helping his parents out on their garden on a Hawkes Bay sheep farm. After high school, he began a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (Honours) at Lincoln University. His fourth-year design project was an ambitious redevelopment plan for public space in the old port area in Napier and it made for an exhausting end to his degree. "That last week I didn't go home, I slept on the floor of the studio."
Later Hamish heard through a workmate about a company in New York that specialised in constructing private gardens on top of city apartments. He wrote the company a letter offering his services. Next thing he had scored a job helping set up rooftop gardens on Manhattan's upper eastside, where many of the trees had to be carried in via the building's service elevators.
"That was an amazing experience," says Hamish of his three months working in the Big Apple. "The climate is so extreme in these places that each year they would replace almost everything in the garden -everything just got wiped out in the winter."
Hamish gained more experience in England, drafting and designing gardens at a small company based in London. His OE.also included a dream job helping redesign the grounds of an Italian villa, for a tourist company based in Tuscany.
Back in New Zealand, Hamish recently completed four fantastic years at a Wellington-based landscape architecture company, where he became a senior landscape architect. He finds the most satisfying part of the job is trying to get on the wavelength of his clients, so you can come up with something that feels right for them and has as much of their personality in it as possible.
Hamish recently set up his own self-titled company, and working on Ultimate Garden has been a great way to mark the change. "People have been saying to me for a long time why don't you start your own business? And it just felt like the right time, everything was pointing me towards it."
