Top NZ gardens to visit

NZ Gardener editor Lynda Hallinan takes her pick of the best New Zealand gardens to visit.

MY HOUSE, MY CASTLE

You don't need a flash house to have a flash garden, but it helps. More important, though, are good taste and green thumbs. At Dunedin's Larnach Castle (145 Camp Rd, Otago Peninsula, www.larnachcastle.co.nz), Margaret Barker could have played it safe with traditional English-style grounds. Instead she empowered her gardeners to experiment with innovative planting ideas, including a new South Seas garden that pushes the climatic boundaries. The Barker family captured the castle in 1967 and unveil a new bronze sculpture in the garden this weekend to mark their 40th year of ownership.

COUNTRY GIRLS

I have a theory that sheep farmers' wives create the best gardens. It's hardly scientific, and I'd hate to imply that dairy or deer farmers' wives are somehow deficient, but sheep farmers' wives have an edge. Perhaps their husbands are more flexible about fencing, as it seems they're forever letting out their green belts, swallowing bare paddocks.

Carolyn Ferraby's magnificent Marlborough garden, Barewood, (140 Barewood Rd, Awatere Valley) is the pick of the bunch. Ferraby put in an ornamental French-style potager years before the rest of us even knew how to spell it. Husband Joe is a handy accomplice, welding metal frames to support espaliered pears and apples. Barewood is open by appointment, ph (03) 575-7432.

Still in Marlborough, Sue and Dave Monaghan's expansive garden at Upton Oaks (33 Hammerichs Rd, Blenheim) includes glamorous perennial borders and fulsome roses. The front paddock has been transformed into an immaculate parterre of clipped buxus hedges laid out in geometric patterns (mind you, Dave isn't a farmer. He's a furniture maker). Upton Oaks is open by appointment, ph (03) 579-3316.

In North Canterbury, Penny Zino's inspirational country garden Flaxmere (128 Westenra's Rd, Hawarden) has it all. Rated a garden of national significance, Flaxmere has evolved over 40 years and is artfully designed with gracious vistas, plus a waterlily pond that Monet would have been proud of. Penny also hosts an annual sculpture exhibition in October (www.artinagarden.co.nz).

STALK YOUR QUARRY

Gardeners don't just like to dig big holes, they also like to fill them and holes don't come much bigger than an abandoned quarry. At Patumahoe, south of Auckland, Malcolm and Dael Wright have planted thousands of tropical waterlilies and lotuses to transform their rocky reservoir into an aquatic paradise (128 Mauku Rd, www.wrightswatergardens.co.nz). The garden is best in late summer. Don't miss the lotus festival in February.

Derelict quarries also lure volunteers like bees to borage flowers to create community gardens on a grand scale. Check out the orchids climbing the walls at the subtropical Whangarei Quarry Gardens (www.whangareiquarrygardens.co.nz); the bromeliads at Te Puna Quarry Park in Bay of Plenty (www.quarrypark.org.nz); and the art exhibitions at Waikato's Waitakaruru Arboretum and Sculpture Park (www.sculpturepark.co.nz). Auckland's Eden Garden (www.edengarden.co.nz) has one of the country's finest collections of camellias and vireya rhododendrons, not to mention the best scones south of the Puhoi Cottage Tea Rooms.

GO BUSH

It takes flair to create a bush garden that's better than the real thing, but David Clarkson and Valda Poletti have pulled it off. Their Taranaki garden Te Kainga Marire (15 Spencer Pl, New Plymouth) meaning "peaceful encampment" is a slice of bush-clad serenity in the 'burbs. What makes it unique is that they started with the clearing, then added the bush. Rare treats include North Island edelweiss and vegetable sheep ask to borrow their magnifying glass to admire the latter's tiny flowers. Not only is Te Kainga Marire (www.tekaingamarire) one of the few private backyards accorded garden of national significance status by the New Zealand Gardens Trust, English gardening celebrity Monty Don rates it as one of the world's best in his latest TV series, Around the World in 80 Gardens. (I'd peacefully encamp anywhere Monty recommended. Imagine Simon Dallow in tweed: he's the thinking gardener's crumpet.)

The capital also has two native spots of note: Te Papa's bush garden (www.tepapa.govt.nz) and Otari-Wilton's Bush (www.otariwiltonsbush.org.nz), a century-old botanical reserve, 5km from downtown.

SCULPTURE VULTURES

Combine a dash of culture with your daily constitutional set off on a stroll around the 27 sculptures installed at the Auckland Botanic Gardens this summer for Stoneleigh Sculpture in the Gardens. As if hosting the Ellerslie International Flower Show wasn't enough to keep the ground staff busy, Jack Hobbs and his team have installed artworks to the tune of $1.5 million along a 1.8km trail around the park. Give Barry Lett's Big Rock Dog, the $25,000 Supreme Award winner, a pat, but keep your own pet on a leash. Stoneleigh Sculpture in the Gardens runs until the end of January and sure beats traipsing around a fusty art gallery on a fine day.

TASTE OF THE TROPICS

Skip Fiji and head for Whenuapai. Peter and Jocelyn Coyle's spectacular subtropical garden, Totara Waters (89 Totara Rd) is a paradise of palms, bromeliads and exotic birds. Peter used to be a car parts dealer; now he scours the country to haggle over special plants instead. The harbourside garden (www.totarawaters.co.nz) is less than 10 years old, but has made precocious progress, as no expense has been spared. I defy you to leave without buying a boot-load of choice plants.

If West Auckland is an unlikely location for a subtropical oasis, try Wanganui. Clive Higgie's garden Paloma (Pohutukawa Lane, Fordell; www.paloma.co.nz) has to be seen to be believed. From the arboretum to the amphitheatre-like valley of aloes, agaves and other exotics, the landscape has an extra-terrestrial quality.

FORMAL DRESS

If you salivate over symmetry and sharply clipped hedges, add Richmond to your list. This impressive Wairarapa garden (40 Wakelin St, Carterton; www.boxwood.co.nz/richmond) is just plain posh. Inspired by 16th- and 17th-century European gardens, the owners have installed a sophisticated formal garden including a reflecting pool long enough for Olympic qualifying laps. Next weekend they're hosting a garden party as part of Carterton's 150th jubilee celebrations. Tickets at the gate.

Formality also reigns at renowned Christchurch architect Sir Miles Warren's garden Ohinetahi, Teddington Rd, Governor's Bay. Sir Miles' historic house nestles into English-style gardens with a Kiwi flavour. It's utterly gorgeous. Ohinetahi is open by appointment, ph (03) 329-9852.

SEASON TO TASTE

You'd think that seasonality was a swear word in this era of low-maintenance landscaping, but there's much to be said for gardens that shamelessly celebrate spring or autumn.

Pukeiti in Taranaki (2290 Carrington Rd; www.pukeiti.org.nz) has a stunning collection of rhododendrons in flower now. Or plan a trip in August, when the flamboyant large-flowered species have the stage to themselves.

For autumn colour in the North Island, the Eastwoodhill Arboretum (2392 Wharekopae Rd; Ngatapa: www.east woodhill.org.nz) is worthy of the long trek to Gisborne, or take the NapierTaupo road to Trelinnoe Park (www.trelinnoepark.co.nz) in the heartland of Hawke's Bay.

In the South Island, autumn colour is easy to access: just look out of your window.

SOUTHERN CHARM

Gardeners are smarter in the deep south. They plant in harmony with the climate instead of constantly trying to conquer it. At Maple Glen in Wyndham, Southland (www.mapleglen.co.nz), cold-hardy plants are celebrated in all their diversity.

Geoff Genge's Invercargill garden Marshwood (Leonard Rd, West Plains; www.marshwoodgardens.co.nz) is home to the New Zealand salvia collection, as well all those perennials no longer deemed fashionable enough to compete with flaxes and cordylines in garden centres. Take your chequebook.

Actually, rent a van and stop at award-winning landscaper Arne Cleland's nursery while you're in the region. Arne specialises in stalwart native plants, but his private garden near Gore, attached to Pukerau Nursery (34 Pukerau St, Gore), innovatively combines our local flora with English-style perennials with panache. Ph (03) 205-3801.

Win $5000 of garden vouchers. See Escape E12 for details.