IN CONVERSATION: JARED LOCKHART
COMMUNITY
Jared Lockhart Landscape Designer,
Photography by David Straight.
As spring unfolds, the garden behind our Ponsonby flagship comes into bloom. Tasked with transforming a once-covered courtyard, landscape designer Jared Lockhart has created a space that feels calm, crafted,
and quietly alive.
We sat down with Jared to learn more about his design process, and explore how our Ponsonby garden - much like a Deadly Ponies piece - celebrates both texture and time.
You began your career in London, spending eight years with Jinny Blom Landscape Design before returning to New Zealand to start your own studio. How did that time overseas shape the way you approach design now?
“I owe my landscaping career to Jinny, and my time working in Europe with her shaped everything we do now - from how we design to how we go about building gardens.”
What was it about the Deadly Ponies project that first caught your interest? Can you take us back to your first impressions of the Ponsonby site and what drew you in creatively?
“Originally, the courtyard had a building covering most of it. Even so, it was obvious the site had been well used in a sort of chaotic but productive way over many years. It was also the first time I was introduced to the Deadly Ponies brand, and I immediately saw how deeply craft-based their work was. From there, I joined the dots quite quickly.
I had a clear sense of what the garden should feel like from that very first visit.”
When designing the Ponsonby garden,
were there certain materials or plants that helped connect the space to the building and the brand?
“I wanted to use brick paving almost immediately and felt that the herringbone pattern would resonate with the brand’s sense of craft. The challenge was finding good bricks in NZ that were available - once I did, their red tone set the palette for the planting. I chose perennials with burgundy undertones to complement the bricks and introduced evergreen topiary forms to anchor the garden and provide interest through winter, when much of the perennial planting lies dormant.”
Creativity means different things to different people, what does it mean to you in landscape design?
“For me, creativity in landscape design is about understanding the site and the clients well enough to do the right thing.”
New Zealand’s landscape has its own rhythm and texture. How does working within that environment shape your ideas?
“I think we use the landscape differently
in New Zealand. We like to inhabit it to
be part of it, rather than treating it as something purely visual. That desire for interaction gives the land a function, and it fundamentally influences how we design.”
If you could describe your approach to landscape design in three words, what would they be — and why?
“Ordered, appropriate, and quiet.”
And finally, when you walk through a garden and feel that it’s truly — working that it feels right — what tells you that? What does beauty mean to you in a landscape?
“We spend so long building gardens and dealing with the process that it’s easy to lose sight of where it is heading. That moment of recognising the garden is truly working tends to come afterwards, when we return after some time has passed. We see it by how the clients use the garden, and how well it sits within its surroundings - it’s a success if it looks like it’s always been there.”
Discover new-season arrivals at our Ponsonby flagship, and pause for a moment in the garden behind the store...
RESORT '25
Introducing Deadly Ponies' Resort '25 Collection, Mr After Mr.
