Gardening, or more to the point, growing as many of your own fruit and vegetables as you can, is one way to off-set the times when your dollar has to stretch further. Most readers aged around their sixties will remember growing up at a time when our parents were very conscious of hard times. In […]
Visitors to the Ellerslie International Flower Show have spoken and chosen Texture Plants’ Off the Wall garden as their favourite. The People’s Choice Award was last night given to a garden which is a secluded area in which to escape from the hustle and bustle of every-day life. It is a combination of seamless structures, […]
Amateur Auckland photographer John Pirtle is on a winning streak having been named the winner of two national photographic competitions in just three months. Mr Pirtle is the winner of this year’s The Great Ellerslie Photo Competition, with his image Lest We Forget (right) which he created for a friend on the anniversary of her […]
Christchurch has retained the National Flower Bed title at this year’s Ellerslie International Flower Show. The city’s entry, a floral tribute to the controversial Peacock Fountain in the Botanic Gardens, has won both gold and been named Ellerslie’s National Flower Bed for 2009. Christchurch won the inaugural National Flower Bed Competition in 2007 at the […]
Four exhibition gardens have won gold at this year’s Ellerslie International Flower Show. In what the judges say was “a tough competition for the medals with a number of hotly contested criteria”, Wellington designer Ben Hoyle and Christchurch designers Carl Pickens, Rob Watson for the Canterbury Horticultural Society and Sir Miles Warren, Alan Trott, Pauline […]
Now is the time to re-invent native planting. The 1980s saw what I like to call the ‘early period’ of native planting design. It was based on the ‘DoC Visitor Centre’ idiom – a bushy thicket of mixed vigorous shrubs and trees with a scattering of sedges or grasses at the edges – oh, and […]
On 11th of March the gates for the first Christchurch-hosted Ellerslie International Flower Show open, promising “the biggest and the best show” in Ellerslie’s 14-year-old history. With more than 80 horticultural exhibits, the stage is set to develop the Southern Hemisphere’s largest garden show into one of the top five garden shows in the world, […]
Hawke’s Bay to host New Zealand Soil Carbon Conference The international spotlight will be on Hawke’s Bay when the NZ Soil Carbon Conference is held in Napier in June. Featuring international experts, renowned scientists and industry leaders, the three day conference will focus on the reality of climate change, biological farming and the huge global […]
