The Holiday write-up (4) Last of Ellerslie Flower Show

As we neared the end of our stay at the show the clouds came over and it started to rain. by we had reached the car it was raining quite heavily .. We set off for the rest of our holiday heading south to Ashburton. Stopping there to arrange accommodation later that night...



Last pictures from the show      























There was an indoor section which held the far mor "Arty" displays :O) 







































































This was a layout to represent the New Zealand forest floor... A light display accompanied the display showing of parts at a time ...See the mushrooms .... 















































This sadly blurry picture is of the famous NZ King Fern ... I think these would look great in the right gardens ..... 























a Fun kids garden ..or for those young at heart types :O) 

The Holiday write-up (3) Still At Ellerslie

Plenty of art work around the show... found this a little freaky... 









Skips as garden ponds .... Not my think but liked the effect ,,, 























The big display of the show - an award winning garden designer came over to do this .... He even persuaded them to allow him this site as it have the view of the lake ....



There's always on who won't get out of teh picture :O) I was stood on a platform to get some pictures....another woman grumbled about mcd being there ..."Tell her to move" I said .... "oh no - we can't do that" she said ... "Well I will" says me ..... 'Oi!!!'  :O)  

































This was about using recycled wood and making it blend with the landscape .... 























Well they seemed to have fun doing it :O) 





















Playground garden

The Holiday Writeup - Ellerslie Garden Show ..

This was the Kiwi/Japanese garden at the Ellerslie Flower Show ...I didn't like it when I was there but have warmed to it now ... 





























This garden was greated by the "incredible edibles" fruit plant company in NZ ... Strawberries on top of the pergola, fejoa trees, blue berry bushes grape vine , and so on ........  























Not sure who did this one ... But of interest was the fir trees ontop of the wall











They were planted in buckets that help a (car) wheel mechansim that allowed them to turn in the wind ...>Effectively making them weather vanes ...... Not sure then why they were in different directions :O)  











I liked this one ...Think I could have this in our garden ... especially the lielows :O) 





















The tidiest veggie gardens :O) Onions were a bit on the small side !! :O}

Holiday Write-up (1) The Ellerslie flower show

My nephew has been visiting NZ with his mate ... Their OE experience ... So we took the chance to be tourists ourselves in our home town and took a drive around town to show him the sights .... We made a point at stopping off at the Weta shop .. .Weta of course famous for it's special effects in peter Jackson films such as LOTR and much much more ...... They also have a screening of the work they are doing and the actual workshops ... Nephew loved it ....



 

































And then it was off to Christchurch on the south Island to start our tour across the island to the west coast . This is the last part of NZ I'd yet to see...The only things left now are Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands ... Only taken me 20 years to do it :O) 





Christchurch is a nice city dominated in the centre by large stone buildings and Cathedral square ... We took a walk around in the afternoon. Having lunch and dinner in restaurants ... It was noticable that the standard of food and service was very good ... Me thinks Wellington has some catching up to do ....



The activity that prompted us to make the trip was to see the Ellerslie flower show ...NZs premier flower show. As such we duely got up early and drove to Hagley park where it was being held .... We had VIP Tickets which allowed us to get in early before the show opened and be part of a guided walk around the place .... 



But not early enough as it happened as we discovered we should have been there 1/2 an hour before ...But no matter we caught up with them all in the VIP tent just getting ready to start the walk......  































This appears to be the punting along the river Avon that flows through Christchurch





This was inspired by the Wellington "Cake Tin" our sports arena for Rugby and the like 

















The perimeter of the show was lined with stalls ...McD bought a pair of secateurs with flowers on them!!   











Hagely park has a lot of artwork dotted about.. So not sure if this is a permanent fixture of part of the show ....