Overwhelming beauty

ROSEMARIE SMITH/The Southland Times ROSEMARIE SMITH/The Southland Times ROSEMARIE SMITH/The Southland Times

SETTING THE MOOD: Te Rangihou Phillips, of Rapaki, provides atmospheric flute music at Te Waipounamu garden, which emphasises the spiritual as well as practical uses of the traditional Maori garden for food, clothing and decoration.

FUTURISTIC: Use of marcrocarpa branchlets as weather vanes top off "Solace in the Sky'', in a roof garden that will characterise cities of the future.

CELEBRATION: In an unexpectedly political statement in this environment, Jan Osborne and Erin Brown's "Freedom" celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall provided a striking contrast to traditional drawing room floral arrangements.

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Rosemarie Smith delivers first impressions of the Ellerslie Garden Show.

For a first-time visitor the breadth of gardening interests catered to at the Ellerslie is quite overwhelming, and no way can you take it all in, even in the privileged crowd-free conditions of media afternoon.

The judges acclaim a higher standard of presentation of the exhibition gardens than last year, with awards going to every one of them, including the expected gold to international guests Chris Beardshaw and Koji Ninomiya.

They also awarded gold to Andy Ellis and Danny Kamo's challenging statement on contemporary landscaping's environmental impact.

But the supreme winner was the multi-media display by the Christchurch Botanic Gardens staff, an indoor representation of the work of fungi in the cycle of decay with amazing sound and light effects.

Displays range very widely.

The rather quaintly old-fashioned bedding plant competitions between councils to illustrate their local attractions, from Christchurch's avon river punt to Rotorua's pink terraces are worlds away from ideas underpinning the works of landscape architects grappling with future predictions of population pressure and climate change on resources.

Stalls offer an array of temptation in everything from plants to garden nighties, not to mention the many opportunities for eating, or just picnicing near the sculpture by the pond.

Stall holders reported the organisers had listened to their concerns from last year, but whether the criticism from the 2009 punters over lack of seating and overly long queues even for food have been met will only be apparent as the crowds roll in.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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