About

Foliaceous is a culmination of my love of NZ nature and making artisanal jewellery

I am happy (as a lot of Wellingtonians are!) to live amongst many fantastic nature and forest reserves – which are an endless source of inspiration and good health.

For this I am grateful to the mana whenua for their deep care and respect of the ngahere (bush/forest) and whenua (land). Their rich history and culture that have founded and intertwined in so many ways with what is uniquely NZ. There is also an enormous amount of incredible conservation and pest control work being done to restore our ngahere, where it was once decimated in so many ways.

New Zealand is slowly and determinedly restoring the balance for people and nature so all can thrive in this beautiful remarkable country at the bottom of the globe.

My own garden has become a home to many of the plants I make from and is probably about 80% native plants now, which our native birds just love. Bye bye grass, welcome flora and fauna. It’s very handy to be able to pick a leaf and study it in detail, so my native plant oasis is forever expanding and is a joy to be in. As New Zealanders we are starting to embrace our own native plant life in our gardens more and more. Where once it was a celebrated curiosity in a museum or special feature plants in botanical garden overseas, “proper” NZ gardens considered it weedy – no more. We have an amazing diverse botanical landscape.

On last count I’ve explored 22 of our native plants in jewellery and have many more to do along with revisits of earlier ones. I’m also starting to explore flowers, seeds, berries and fungi, so there’s more exciting pieces, stories and botanical features to venture through for this little artisan.