Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Pure New Zealand Ora - Garden of Well-Being won a gold medal in the 2004 Show Gardens section. Tourism New Zealand’s 2006 garden will bring Kiwi culture to Chelsea with this year’s entry.

100% Pure New Zealand at Chelsea

A design inspired by the west coast of Auckland.
More about this image Email this image

The planting follows the transition from hilltop to the shore and is naturalistic in nature. It embraces the edges of the architectural elements and softens the harsh angles. The freestanding walls cut through reflecting the natural instinct to enclose our territory but are incomplete as we also accept our responsibility to allow nature to define itself. The heights range from 2.2 m to 800. The walls are solid plaster construct and painted black the colour which New Zealanders most strongly identify with. The angular nature of the geometry creates a natural tension with the desire to design and the perfection of nature.

KEY DESIGNER AT CHELSEA Xanthe White is a leading landscape designer and gardening personality in New Zealand specialising in urban residential designs. Read More ›

The front of the garden is laid with black sand from the west coast with tidal marks and cut through with a thick glass horizon. The horizon surrounds us and our isolation has left us with a longing to search beyond this continually pushing boundaries. The rock dividing the glass sits as an island beyond. The rock will all be locally sourced.

KEY PLANTSMAN AT CHELSEA Philip Smith is an up and coming New Zealand landscape designer who specialises in the use of rare and unusual indigenous plants within a contemporary framework. Read More ›

The movement of water through the design also allows the viewer to pause and move through the garden discovering various views and perceptions of the landscape. There are three points for sculpture in the garden and contemporary pieces will be selected that represent various different cultural responses to the landscape in its different forms.

Sculpture

There are three sculptures in the garden, reflecting the relationship between identity and the natural landscape. The essence of the landscape is the nature through which our cultural identity is defined by our relationship with the land and the universal nature of this relationship across different ethnicities within New Zealand society.

The works express a connected New Zealand identity that embraces the unique cultural roots of our nation and represents our common/shared culture. The landscape follows the movement of the land and water from hill to horizon in the West Coast of Auckland. It moves continuously from hill to river to shore and the three sculptures relate to each of the three areas.