4th February 2010

All Black’s garden to promote sustainable design practices

All Black halfback Andy Ellis and his mate Danny Kamo are back exhibiting at this year’s Ellerslie International Flower Show but there will be no cricket, beers or barbecue in their garden.

The duo, who won silver and a merit National Lighting Award for their exhibit The Crate Escape at last year’s Show, say they “have grown up”, taking an entirely different approach this year.

This year’s exhibition garden The Last Laugh is a serious statement about the impact humans are having on the environment and the planet’s natural resources.

“The concept for this year’s garden was conceived over a coffee, after Danny had had a weird dream,” they laugh.

Last year’s exhibition garden, The Crate Escape, had a cricket pitch, a grandstand/bar area from which to watch the game and a barbecue – “it was the ultimate bloke’s backyard”.

Central to the design of this year’s garden The Last Laugh is an enormous boulder, symbolic of Mother Earth fighting back. The boulder has come crashing into the garden, exploding through the fence and deck and sending an undulating wave, like that of an earthquake, through the garden landscape.

“With this year’s garden we want visitors to Ellerslie to stop and reflect on their own gardens; their choice of design, use of materials and how this impacts on the environment,” the pair say.

“The boulder that has crashed into a garden represents Mother Earth fighting back against non-sustainable design and our use of hardwood timber harvested from non-sustainable sources, our overuse and waste of such precious natural resources as water, and how inappropriate exotic plant selection can suffocate our waterways.

“What we want is visitors to Ellerslie to think about this and how they can make small changes in the way they live and the materials and resources they use.”

Andy and Danny say it is great to back exhibiting at Ellerslie. “While our primary goal is to create awareness with the garden, we also hope the garden will be another award-winner.”

Ellis is three years into completing his four-year Bachelor of Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University, having put his design career on hold when five years ago he was called up to play for the Crusaders and then the All Blacks.

Kamo completed a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University in 2004 having spent the last six years working with John Marsh Landscape Architects.

• Ellerslie International Flower Show is New Zealand’s premier week-long Garden Party in Christchurch’s North Hagley Park from 10 to 14 March 2010. The Show celebrates Christchurch’s Garden City heritage and the best of national and international garden design. Check out the website for further information www.ellerslieflowershow.co.nz

Pictured: Andy Ellis and Danny Kamo’s award-winning 2009 Ellerslie International Flower Show exhibition garden, The Crate Escape.

For further information contact:
Ellerslie International Flower Show Communications Adviser
Jan McCarthy
   03 941 6412 or 027 637 7912