Gardening in New Zealand

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Parnell Rose Gardens during the 2006 Rose Festival. Parnell Rose Festival.jpg
Parnell Rose Gardens during the 2006 Rose Festival.

Gardening is a popular pastime in New Zealand. A 2007/2008 survey of physical activities found that 43% of New Zealanders had participated in gardening in the previous 12 months. [1] A range of books, magazines and television programmes are dedicated to the topic.

Contents

New Zealand has restrictions on trading during the Easter holiday break, and in recent years garden supply centres have flouted the law and remained open. [2]

Gardens

Botanical gardens

Arboreta

Events

Gardeners and horticulturists

Environmental issues

With the European settlement of New Zealand, which occurred in relatively recent times from an ecological perspective, a wide range of plants were introduced into the country for both agriculture and for gardens. Many of the plants went on to become invasive species. [3]

Some notable examples of invasive plants that are used in gardens include:

Online hoax

New Zealand has been at the centre of an online hoax about prohibition of home gardening, where residents of New Zealand supposedly had their gardens containing such plants as avocado trees and feijoa trees confiscated or destroyed. [4]

The topic garnered further attention when a blog post in 2020 which was widely replicated on facebook claimed that a new food bill would require home gardeners to obtain authorisation to share home-grown plant matter, giving food safety officers the power to perform raids on property. The post was in fact referring to a 2010 bill that was passed into law as the Food Act 2014, which specifically excludes "seeds... or other plant material intended for planting" from the scope of the legislation. The blog post has largely been debunked as sensationalism. [5]

Plants

Feijoa sellowiana are popular garden plants in New Zealand, which produces one of the most popular fruits in New Zealand. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Feijoa sellowiana</i> Species of plant in the myrtle family

Feijoa sellowiana also known as Acca sellowiana (O.Berg) Burret, is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. It is native to the highlands of southern Brazil, eastern Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina. Feijoa are also common in gardens of New Zealand. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental tree and for its fruit. Common names include feijoa, pineapple guava and guavasteen, although it is not a true guava. It is an evergreen shrub or small tree, 1–7 metres (3.3–23.0 ft) in height.

The Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture (RNZIH) is a horticultural society in New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reeves-Reed Arboretum</span> United States historic place

The Reeves-Reed Arboretum is a nonprofit arboretum and garden located at 165 Hobart Avenue in Summit, Union County, New Jersey, United States. It is the only arboretum in Union County. A popular wedding spot, the arboretum grounds are open daily from dawn till dusk, free of charge.

The following lists events that happened during 1908 in New Zealand.

This is an alphabetical index of articles related to gardening.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamilton Gardens</span> Garden park in Hamilton, New Zealand

Hamilton Gardens is a public garden park in the south of Hamilton owned and managed by Hamilton City Council in New Zealand. The 54-hectare park is based on the banks of the Waikato River and includes enclosed gardens, open lawns, a lake, a nursery, a convention centre and the Hamilton East Cemetery. It is the Waikato region's most popular visitor attraction, attracting more than 1 million people and hosting more than 2,000 events a year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hackfalls Arboretum</span> Arboretum in Gisborne, New Zealand

Hackfalls Arboretum is an arboretum in New Zealand. It was founded in the 1950s by Bob Berry. It is part of Hackfalls Station, a sheep and cattle farm of about 10 square kilometres, owned by the Berry family. The farm is in Tiniroto, a tiny village in the eastern part of the North Island, between Gisborne (town) and Wairoa.
The arboretum covers 0.56 km2, along the borders of two lakes, and has about 3,500 species of trees and shrubs. It includes many different oaks "spaced in rolling pastureland, allowing each to develop fully, and limbed up to enable grass to grow underneath". The most important part of the collection is about 50 different taxa of Mexican oaks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastwoodhill Arboretum</span> National arboretum of New Zealand

Eastwoodhill is the national arboretum of New Zealand. It covers 131 hectares (1.31 km2) and is located 35 km northwest of Gisborne, in the hill country of Ngatapa. It was founded in 1910 by William Douglas Cook. Cook's life work would become the creation of a giant collection of Northern Hemisphere temperate climate zone trees in New Zealand – a dream that would eventually cost him all his money – buying and importing thousands of trees from New Zealand and British nurseries.

<i>Billardiera scandens</i> Species of flowering plant

Billardiera scandens, commonly known as apple berry or apple dumpling, is a small shrub or twining plant of the Pittosporaceae family which occurs in forests in the coastal and tableland areas of all states and territories in Australia, apart from the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It has a silky touch and appearance that becomes more brittle as the dense growth matures. The inflorescence consists of single or paired yellow flowers, pink-tinged yellow sepals and bright yellow petals and is attached to a hairy drooping peduncle. The summer flush produces fruit of oblong berries up to 30 mm long, initially green in colour and covered in fine hair - somewhat akin to a tiny kiwifruit in appearance.

<i>Agapanthus praecox</i> Species of flowering plant

Agapanthus praecox is a popular garden plant around the world, especially in Mediterranean climates. It is native to the Kwa-Zulu Natal and Western Cape provinces of South Africa. Local names include agapant, bloulelie, isicakathi and ubani. Most of the cultivated plants of the genus Agapanthus are hybrids or cultivars of this species. It is divided into three subspecies: subsp.praecox, subsp. orientalis and subsp. minimus.

William Douglas Cook was the founder of Eastwoodhill Arboretum, now the national arboretum of New Zealand, and one of the founders of Pukeiti, a rhododendron garden, close to New Plymouth. He was a "plantsman with the soul of a poet and the vision of a philosopher".

Lady Anne Sophia Berry was an English-New Zealand horticulturist who founded Rosemoor Garden. She offered the garden to the Royal Horticultural Society in 1988. In 1990 she married Bob Berry and went to live on his farm at Tiniroto, Gisborne, New Zealand. She then created the Homestead Garden of Hackfalls Arboretum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auckland Botanic Gardens</span>

Auckland Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden in the New Zealand city of Auckland. It is located in the suburb of Manurewa, in the Manurewa Local Board Area. The garden covers 64 hectares, and holds more than 10,000 plants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bason Botanic Gardens</span> Botanical garden in Whanganui, New Zealand

Bason Botanic Gardens are located in Whanganui in the Manawatū District of New Zealand. They have been rated as a Garden of Significance by the New Zealand Gardens Trust and offer six themed areas, including one of the most extensive public-garden orchid collections in the country, and the conservatory architecture is considered unique. Much of the development work is conducted by the Bason Botanic Gardens Trust, which collaborates with the City Council.

<i>Agapanthus</i> in New Zealand Flower in New Zealand

Originating from South Africa, Agapanthus—specifically Agapanthus praecox and its cultivars—were brought to New Zealand and later became a popular and common invasive species garden plant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rod Bieleski</span> New Zealand botanist and academic

Roderick Leon Bieleski was a New Zealand plant physiologist. As a botanist and horticulturist, his research focussed on understanding the factors that affected the behaviour of plants, in particular horticultural crops. His work had practical relevance to farmers and orchardists in building their understanding of these factors and taking account of them while making a living from growing and harvesting plants. He received many honours and awards, culminating in being appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in 2010.

<i>Lonicera <span style="font-style:normal;">×</span> bella</i> Species of honeysuckle

Lonicera × bella, known as Bell's honeysuckle and showy fly honeysuckle, is a hybrid species of flowering plant in the family Caprifoliaceae. It was first described by Hermann Zabel in 1889. Zabel reported that he grew it in cultivation from seeds obtained from a plant of Lonicera morrowii, but that its appearance suggested the influence of L. tatarica. It has escaped from cultivation and become an aggressive invasive species in central and eastern parts of the United States.

Nancy Margaret Tichborne was a New Zealand watercolour artist. She specialised in paintings of flowers; her work has appeared on calendars, diaries, cards and postage stamps in New Zealand and internationally.

<i>Sonchus kirkii</i> Herb in the Asteraceae family

Sonchus kirkii, also known as New Zealand sow thistle, or shore puha is a herb in the Asteraceae family. It grows in coastal New Zealand.

References

  1. "Sport, Recreation and Physical Activity Participation Among New Zealand Adults: Key Results of the 2007/08 Active New Zealand Survey" (PDF). SPARC Aotearoa.
  2. NZPA (21 April 2011). "Stores to flout Easter laws". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 20 January 2012.
  3. Sullivan, J.J.; S.M. Timmins; P.A. Williams (2005). "Movement of exotic plants into coastal native forests from gardens in northern New Zealand". New Zealand Journal of Ecology. 29 (1): 1–10.
  4. Drummond, Josh. "New Zealand's absurd gardening ban once again makes us the laughing stock of the Internet". The Spinoff. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  5. Anonymous. "New Zealand's 'new' Food Bill doesn't ban gardening". AAP Factcheck. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
  6. Ockhuysen, Stephanie. "The Taranaki farmers introducing the taste of feijoas to the world".

Further reading