Taranaki gardens of significance

New Zealand’s Taranaki region - on the western edge of the central North Island - is a unique horticultural area that is world renowned for its gardens.

The volcanic soil and rainforest climate that feed the region’s lush dairy pastures also provide ideal growing conditions for native rainforests and many exotic species that have found a new home on the plains and rolling hills dominated by Mt Taranaki.

Since New Zealand’s early days, gardening has been a traditional aspect of domestic Kiwi life - whether for survival or pleasure.

Māori cultivated kumara and other crops on the edge of their pa / traditional village dwelling, long before Europeans arrived with exotic vegetables, and flowering plants and trees to beautify their new homes.

Some of New Zealand’s most famous gardens were established in the 19th century, but many are also modern creations.

Taranaki Rhododendron & Garden Festival
The 10-day Taranaki Rhododendron & Garden Festival, held annually in late October - early November, is a major event on the New Zealand gardening calendar and an opportunity to showcase the region’s public and private gardens.

The festival features around 50 gardens, including a number of gardens that have been classified as nationally or internationally ‘significant’ by the New Zealand Gardens Trust.

A second garden festival, the Taranaki Fringe Garden Festival - which runs over the same dates - features a further 70 to 80 gardens.

Taranaki has an increasing number of significant gardens - more than any other part of New Zealand.

There are four gardens of ‘national significance’, six gardens of ‘significance’, and one garden of ‘international significance’ - Te Kainga Marire garden.

Te Kainga Marire - Garden of International Significance
One of New Zealand’s great gardens, Te Kainga Marire - meaning peaceful encampment - is described as the epitome of the Kiwi garden. It showcases native flora that has been arranged to imitate the ‘real’ New Zealand.

A pool and rock garden display plants requiring specific conditions, while the roof of a sunken fern house shows off the distinctive foliage of the begonia Elatostema rugosa. Exotic plants include old specimen roses and rhododendrons, and an organic vegetable garden.

Te Kainga Marire
15 Spencer Place, New Plymouth

Gardens of National Significance

Oakley Garden
Oakley Garden - a large family garden - reflects the owner’s formal training in horticulture and landscape design. The garden is near the coast and has been designed to withstand the local prevailing wind. Major features include shelters that create havens, hedge-lined paths linking garden rooms, cottage borders, and many hanging baskets.

Oakley Garden
79 Lower Normanby Rd, Manaia

Pukeiti Garden
Pukeiti Garden - close to Mt Taranaki’s volcanic slopes and encircled by rainforest - is an internationally renowned rhododendron garden that was originally planted in 1951. Kilometres of tracks wander the forest and gardens which include covered displays of vireyas and other plant collections. Abundant native birdlife inhabits the forest canopy, and the mountain streams are a haven for rare native fish.

Pukeiti's flowering season starts in July when the first majestic large-leaf rhododendrons flower. Camellias, large magnolias and michelias follow, and by October the garden is alive with colour.

Pukeiti Garden
2290 Carrington Road (23km southwest of New Plymouth)

Pukekura Park & Brooklands
Pukekura Park is the centre-piece of New Plymouth’s extensive parks and reserves network. The 49ha / 120-acre public park includes Brooklands garden estate, zoo and historic Gables colonial hospital.

This garden - which has been in development since 1876 - has a diverse landscape ranging from luxuriant native bush to broad lawns with annual bedding displays, themed garden plantings and a large exotic specimen tree collection. There are several natural waterways and artificial lakes.

The native orchid and fern collection housed in a sunken conservatory is of outstanding interest. An impressive outdoor sound stage and grassed amphitheatre provide a summer venue for concerts.

Brooklands has sweeping lawns, magnificent old trees and flower-filled borders. Boating on the fern fringed lake or quiet bush walks in the valleys are other attractions.

Pukekura Park
Fillis Street, New Plymouth

Puketarata Garden
Puketarata - begun in the 1980s - is a large country garden with a diverse collection of natives, rhododendrons, roses, unusual shrubs and perennials. It features a small orchard under-planted with daffodils, abundant birdlife, vegetable and herb gardens, and pretty views from the haha across a specially planted gully. The garden and house are adjacent to 400-year-old Puketarata Pa.

Puketarata
14 Ngawhini Rd, Hawera

Gardens of Significance

Mary’s Place
Mary’s Place is a pretty town garden with a sense of space and tranquility that clearly illustrates a love of plants. The setting of trickling and misted waters includes rustic collections, archways draped with climbing roses and clematis, and pots of succulents in sunny areas.

Mary’s Place
190 Glover Rd, Hawera

Merleswood Garden
Merleswood - which has been in owner Erica Jago’s family since 1904 - is an outstanding evolving garden set amid large structural trees. Spring features include flowering wisterias, rhododendron hybrids, maples and rugosa rose hedgerows. A laburnum walk leads to a cleverly developed pond and stream. The garden is open by appointment year-round.

Merleswood Garden
597 Beaconsfield Road, Stratford

Mountside Garden
Mountside is an imaginative fun garden with a touch of fantasy. Features include a variety of formal and informal rooms, plant combinations, ponga log structures hung with wisteria and clematis, an outstanding topiary fantail in golden macrocarpa, and a fernery with orchids.

Mountside
137 Ronald Rd, Stratford

Nikau Grove Garden
Nikau Grove is a mature one-acre garden nestled in a gully of native bush with hundreds of nikau palms and sub-tropical plants. Features include many walkways and board walks, a cascading waterfall and natural meandering stream.

Nikau Grove
65F Govett Ave, New Plymouth

Openlands Garden
Openlands is a 2.5-acre country garden near Manaia, in south Taranaki, that has been developed since 1961 when it was just a bare paddock. The garden of sweeping lawns and mature trees surrounds a farm homestead. Rose beds, a golden gleditsia, and 60 large rhododendrons provide splashes of springtime colour and a home for native birds.

The property also includes a collection of vireya rhododendrons housed in a shade house, a dell of native ferns and colourful clivias where two bridges cross a meandering stream, aviaries of exotic birds and a renovated heritage church that’s a favourite photographic feature.

Openlands Country Garden
1064 Auroa Rd, Auroa

Thorveton Garden
Thorveton, a town garden that has been designed to make the maximum use of space, features walls and fences covered with espaliered camellias and apple trees. The small private garden is planted with small trees, vireya rhododendrons, and other small shrubs and perennials. Features include a decorative display of vegetables in a minute space, an immaculate hedge on a Lilliputian scale, containers, glasshouse, fern garden and water features.

Thorveton
83 Heta Rd, New Plymouth

NZ Gardens Trust registered gardens
Other Taranaki gardens registered with the New Zealand Gardens Trust include:

• Cairnhill
• Cedar Lodge and Santa's Choice
• Hopkirk's Garden
• Lockinge
• Ostler's Garden
• Putt Garden
• Sanderson Garden

Other significant Taranaki gardens

Hollard Gardens
Hollard Gardens were established in 1927 by dairy farmer Bernard Hollard whose life-long passion for collecting and growing plants has created an important heritage collection. The gardens, which are now in public ownership, are divided into three main areas:

• Old Garden (1927) - a living reference to New Zealand’s plant nurseries and breeders - is a woodland garden with narrow winding paths through a closely planted and diverse range of native and exotic plants
• New Garden (1982) is open and expansive with wide grassed paths and a large lawn bounded by mainly herbaceous plantings
• Native New Zealand Garden (1992) contains rare and endangered plants.

Hollard Gardens
Upper Manaia road, Kaponga

King’s Garden
King’s Garden - winner of several regional garden awards - offers 1.5 acres of spectacular spring colour. Features include sweeping lawns, azaleas, rhododendrons, roses and a shade house, along with a small stream planted with hostas, iris and primulas and overhung by maples.

King’s Garden
172 Upper Lepper Rd, Inglewood

Ngamamaku Garden
Ngamamaku Garden - nestled between the Kaitake ranges and the Tasman Sea - is a 1.2ha / three-acre garden that has been developed over the last 18 years. It is a mixture of natural native bush and formal gardens in a series of defined small spaces that have been landscaped on many levels. The most recent development, a Japanese garden, opened in 2004.

Ngamamaku Garden
1521 Surf Highway 45, Oakura

Te Popo Gardens
Te Popo Gardens is a 34-acre private woodland and native forest park that is renowned for its birdlife. Deep ravines enfold the five-acre garden while easy level paths wander through forest, lawns, and perennial borders. A Māori name for "lullaby", Te Popo is also a peaceful country retreat with self-contained accommodation.

Te Popo Gardens
636 Stanley Road, Stratford

Tikorangi - the Jury Garden
Tikorangi - the Jury Garden is a plant breeder’s garden in the English landscape tradition that has pushed the boundaries of what can normally be grown in the local landscape. Collections include magnolias, camellias, and rhododendrons. The range of plant material grown in different areas fits this garden into the new Pacifica style.

Tikorangi - the Jury Garden
589 Otaraoa Road, RD43, Waitara 4383

Tupare Garden
Tupare is a beautifully restored garden that surrounds a classic arts and crafts era Chapman-Taylor home, near New Plymouth. Sculpted from a hillside overlooking the Waiwhakaiho River, it is one of the Taranaki region's premier landscaped gardens and features many large mature trees. The property was originally developed by prominent Taranaki businessman Sir Russell Matthews.

Tupare Garden
487 Mangorei Road, New Plymouth

Church Gardens
Nestled at the foot of Egmont National Park, Church Gardens (formerly known as Woodleigh) has been created with plants from the temperate world and is best seen in summer. This garden paradise is a haven for birds and many rare plants, including New Zealand's best hydrangea collection. Owner Glyn Church is an acclaimed authority on hydrangeas and their allied species.

Church Gardens
1403 Surf Highway 45, Oakura

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