As a part of the research on the western private gardens, this study was carried out to investigate the beginning and changes of cottage garden style in New Zealand. Early immigrants came mainly from the southern countries of England. Once established, many colonists imported plants from England for nostalgia's sake. They aspired to the high fashion of the times, which was the Gardenesque style. At this time flower-gardening was undergoing a considerable growth. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the new design trend in Victorian gardens was formality. Victorian Cottage gardens in New Zealand had much more formality than today's interpretation of this style. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the new theme of the garden was a highly romantic eclecticism, which arose the integration of the formality and the naturalism. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, the vegetable garden that was the norm back was common, but on the wane throughout New Zealand. In the second half of the twentieth century, a number of new approaches to the garden-making have emerged. Postmodernism also led New Zealanders to search for a National Identity. An eclecticism which re-ordered material in this way could serve the purpose of maintaining the content while radically altering the form. The English cottage garden transferred to the front yards of New Zealand has produced a New Zealand style cottage garden, that is a copy for which there was never an orignal. Viewed from the historical and cultural background and changes of New Zealand Cottage Garden Style, it can be characterized as a practical, independent, and innovative garden based on the combination of utility and beauty.