Newsletter February 2010
Gates for the 2010 Ellerslie International Flower Show open in just 28 days
One month today the gates will open for the 15th Ellerslie International Flower Show in Christchurch’s North Hagley Park. With almost 100 horticultural exhibits – including more than 30 display gardens – Ellerslie 2010 will be the biggest in the Show’s 15-year history and is guaranteed to impress the thousands of visitors from throughout New Zealand and the world.
Ellerslie is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest garden show and we are well on our way to developing Ellerslie in to one of the top five garden events in the world. This year’s Show has an outstanding calibre of garden designers and a real strength and diversity with its horticultural exhibits – this could be the Show which cements our standing on the international stage.
For the first time in the Show’s history, Ellerslie will this year have two international feature gardens. Multi award-winning Japanese designer Koji Ninomiya will join English designer Chris Beardshaw in designing international feature gardens for the event. For the last decade Koji has judged at Ellerslie and we are privileged he has returned this year to design the Show’s first Japanese garden.
Ellerslie 2010 has so many highlights:
o Multi award-winning Chelsea Flower Show designer Chris Beardshaw’s magnificent An Englishman’s Retreat garden on the shores of Victoria Lake with almost 10,000 plants, including 4500 annuals and 3000 herbaceous plants.
o All Black halfback Andy Ellis and his mate Danny Kamo’s "grown up" garden where there is no cricket, beers or barbecue this year. The award-winning duo is making a serious statement about the impact humans are having on the environment and the planet's natural resources.
o Gold award-winning Ellerslie 2009 designer Dan Rutherford’s ice garden for the Christchurch International Airport Company. The evolving ice garden will have a two-metre high towering iceberg, a developing ice sheet and an ocean abundant with plants representing marine life. Icy Oasis will evolve over the five days of the Show, providing visitors to Ellerslie with a full sensory experience of actually being in the Antarctic.
o New Zealand’s best landscapers being put through their paces in The Great North and South Landscape Build-off. North and South teams will compete to build a mirror image garden with the emphasis on “local materials for local projects”.
o An exhibition by 21 of New Zealand’s best artists in Ellerslie’s Sculpture Garden, including a debut of works by international ceramic artist Susan Higgs. This is your opportunity to see and buy a piece of original New Zealand art for your own garden.
o New Zealand’s landscape design students competing for the title of Student Designer of the Year presented by Yates. The innovation and excitement in this category is wonderful.
o The official Ellerslie Garden Tours organised by the Canterbury Horticultural Society. These are guided tours of Canterbury’s best award-winning and nationally significant gardens.
o And flowers, flowers, flowers in the National Flower Bed Competition being hotly contested by seven areas, including the Coromandel, Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch - the Garden City looking to retain the title it has won since 2007.
It will be a fantastic Show and I look forward to welcoming you all to Christchurch and the 15th Ellerslie International Flower Show when it opens in Christchurch in just 28 days.
Regards
BOB PARKER
MAYOR OF CHRISTCHURCH
