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After last year’s Show was cancelled following the February 22 earthquake, the 2012 Show promises to brighten the city’s landscape for five days from 7 to 11 March.
Residents will be wowed by gardens by Australian designers Rick Eckersley, Scott Leung and Myles Broad with their gold award-winning The Last Australian Garden from the 2010 Singapore Garden Festival and four future inner city Christchurch gardens by Ellerslie gold award winners and top New Zealand designers, Aucklanders Xanthe White and Tim Feather, Wellington’s Ben Hoyle and the Canterbury Horticultural Society.
There will be more than 40 gardens on display, in what will be one of the best shows to be seen in Christchurch.
There is everything from a courtyard garden which project engineer for the Upper Waitaki Hydroelectric power scheme Max Smith would have had at his Twizel home and a beautiful rose garden featuring the latest varietal releases to a contemporary design of the traditional glasshouse and a wonderful project aimed at getting young families to start growing their own vegetable patch.
Christchurch will battle Napier, Auckland, Rotorua and Ashburton in the Zealandia National Flower Bed Competition where there will be two-metre-high floral geysers and bubbling mud pools, art deco facades, Rangitoto Island and Auckland’s waterfront, salmon anglers on Canterbury’s best fishing rivers and a sunbathing penguin floating on an island. Dramatic and colourful these gardens are guaranteed to stir up plenty of parochial rivalry between the cities and towns.
Christchurch designer Dan Rutherford returns to create his third and most ambitious garden in the Christchurch International Airport Starlight Marquee working with international lighting expert Andrew Frazer who has created the lighting displays for many major theme parks throughout the world. Dan has won gold at Ellerslie for both his garden designs and the lighting.
Christchurch’s own multi-award winning Christchurch Botanic Gardens team heads to the Hort Galore Marquee this year, looking for a new challenge after winning the supreme award at the 2010 Show. This year, the team are creating an exhibit based on an abandoned film set and a jungle adventure to showcase the tropical plants in the Gardens’ glasshouses which have been closed since the February earthquake.
There is so much happening at this year’s Show and plenty of ideas for residents to be inspired to get back into their garden
For more information about Ellerslie visit the official Ellerslie International Flower Show website. or 'like' our Facebook page
