Keeping Britomart’s iconic street planters and flowerbeds lush and blooming is a relentless job. Head gardener Sayburn Miller joined the operations team in 2023 to bring new life to the precinct’s planting. A year and a half on, his colourful approach is working.
MELINDA WILLIAMS How long have you been managing the gardens at Britomart?
SAYBURN MILLER It’s been 18 months. I work part-time, Mondays and Fridays, and a few extra days during planting season and over the summer to water and ensure everything’s kept alive, which is the biggest part of the job. But I’ve got Junior from the operations team, who helps out a lot with watering. I’ve trained him up for this job and he is amazing!
MELINDA WILLIAMS What’s your background in gardening and what made you interested in working here?
SAYBURN MILLER Well, when I was four years old, I sowed my first seed, which was lettuce, and I sold it to the neighbours. And I’ve been in the garden ever since. I’ve been doing residential landscapes for 30 years, self-taught and learned through work. The thing that connected me to Britomart was I really love this part of the city and I thought I could make a difference. Britomart really has architecture at the top of its calibre and I just wanted to make the gardens match that. I thought Auckland needed me [laughs].
MELINDA WILLIAMS There’s been a noticeable change in Britomart’s gardens since you’ve arrived. What’s your approach to the gardens here?
SAYBURN MILLER Tim Ellis [director of operations at Britomart] was the direct point of contact I had with Britomart, and he is all for flowers. Britomart has a scale that excited me and I thought we could really liven it up. We’ve got about 400 pots and thousands of plants, up to 4,000 flowering plants at any one time. It’s scaled back for summer because the geraniums and other summer flowers are bigger, so you don’t need so many plants per pot.
MELINDA WILLIAMS What kind of planting plan or approach do you take when you’re deciding which species to put in?
SAYBURN MILLER We do it season by season. And it’s like fashion really, isn’t it? You get the summer wardrobe and you get the winter wardrobe, and that’s what’s exciting, to really have that direct change. So last summer, my first summer job was really successful and we noticed that the public really love the petunias, so we’ve doubled up on them this year. We’ve gone with more pastel tones this year – last summer was louder. From the onset, I really went with mixed colours. We have to do mixed colour because of the vandalism, basically.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Is that a big problem?
SAYBURN MILLER We do get young guys who come through on a Thursday night and pull our planters to bits or sit on them, which isn’t very good for them, so then we have to replace them. Showing off to each other. I don’t know. Sometimes we put roses in when the plants keep getting nicked. A grandma might come along, steal a plant and put it in her bag.
MELINDA WILLIAMS No! Is nothing sacred?! I suppose all those beautiful geraniums are quite tempting.
SAYBURN MILLER It’s true. We’ve caught them on camera. Anyway, when that sort of thing happens, it’s a lot easier to replace something in a mixed colour line than in a block of colour. I think 99.9 percent of people are respectful and I don’t buy into the minority that do vandalise, I just get on and fix it. I thought if we brought the gardens up a level that the vandalism would drop off and people would be more respectful. And I think that’s working.
MELINDA WILLIAMS There’s quite a mix of native and introduced species around the precinct. What are some of the main native species we find around here?
SAYBURN MILLER I’ve simplified the native palette to mainly standard blue totara, Matapouri Blue, because we want to be seen as a New Zealand identity with a bit of exotic around the edge to give us the colour and city life sort of vibrance. The natives are a great base. A lot of natives fall over pretty quickly, so to speak, when they’re put into a working garden.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Oh, really? Why is that?
SAYBURN MILLER They don’t like being tampered with and touched so much. They’re bit sensitive. They don’t want to be overfed and over-pruned.
MELINDA WILLIAMS They just like to be left alone.
SAYBURN MILLER That’s right.
MELINDA WILLIAMS There may be an analogy with the traditional New Zealand character there.
SAYBURN MILLER Yeah, absolutely.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Do you adapt your plantings to work with what the retailers and food businesses like to see near them?
SAYBURN MILLER Yeah, we do try to. This season the maitre d’ at Ortolana wasn’t keen on the flowers we chose so we replanted them, and now they look cool. Or the team at Chanel might say, “We’ve got someone coming in from overseas this week so we’d like flowers.” So we try and make it work. Over at Alma, they wanted grasses instead of flowers, and it can be quite harsh on the corner with that wind, so it worked out well.
MELINDA WILLIAMS How often would you change plants out significantly? Every season?
SAYBURN MILLER Predominantly our big changeover seasons are April and September through to October. And then in summertime we try and create a bit of a top-up. In winter this year, we went with standard cyclamens. Last year I used the mini-cyclamens but the bigger ones just had so much more pop in their appearance. Last summer, I was really successful with the dahlias. They put on a good show and I get really excited when I see bees on the flowers. I mean, to be right in heart of Auckland city and with all the stress of the world, to actually see bees foraging is very exciting.
MELINDA WILLIAMS It’s lovely to see, isn’t it? I think they come from the hives that Westpac keeps on the top of the East Building. With the watering system, is the water rainfall-collected?
SAYBURN MILLER Yes. The water’s harvested off the roof of the Britomart Carpark and the East Building above EY, and it’s kept in tanks. We’ve got a little mini tanker that we pump the water out of the sump and drive it around to water the plants.
MELINDA WILLIAMS Do you get feedback when you’re out working?
SAYBURN MILLER People are so appreciative that we’ve got something so beautiful in Auckland, and it’s really kicked in just with the length of time. The effort doesn’t go unnoticed. So it’s a reward just to have the confirmation from the public that they’re happy with the way that we have presented. But it’s not just the garden, it’s the whole team. The cleaning team are amazing, just polishing and minting and cleaning up constantly.
