Welcome to Edible Gardens
Grow your appetite for an edible garden.
The arrival of the edible phenomenon has been gaining popularity in recent times all over the world. Last summer in the UK, garden centres reported an increase in sales of edibles from 50 per cent to 75 per cent, so it was just a matter of time before the edible phenomenon hit New Zealand.
With the green vibe now a driving force behind this trend, planting anything edible has become the thing to do for the first time in years. It’s not only inflating food prices or the way we perceive our food to be compromised by pesticides and additives that’s fuelling the trend, but rather more and more people have come to realise there are many health benefits to growing your own food supply. Traditionally, too, in tough times people tended to stay home and work to improve their own piece of paradise. And so for the first time in manyyears, people have got a buzz from tiling their own plot of land.
‘Magical’ bush-garden wins people’s choice award at Ellerslie
The Earth Sharing Life Garden was voted people’s choice at the Ellerslie Flower Show.
Visitors to the Ellerslie International Flower Show have embraced a garden with an emotional environmental message in picking this year’s People’s Choice award. The Earth Sharing Life Garden, created by Julie Moore from Plantet Earth and Lynn Cairney from Fusion Landscape Design, is a darkened bush-garden lit with special effects and accompanied by the beating heart of a giant, revolving world. It also features waterfalls, glow worm caves and a shipwreck. Moore and Cairney spent nine months creating their masterpiece, which calls for environmental action and is situated inside the new Visique Starlight Marquee.
“Our take is that earth and mankind can nurture each other and provide for each other, but we all need to be conscious of our choices and how they will impact on our environment,” said Moore. The garden also won the Supreme Award for Lighting, an important element in all the marquee gardens as they are completely blacked out with hundreds of metres of black silk. Judges’ convenor Jan Woodhouse described the garden as a ”magical, multi-media experience with a variety of lighting effects and lovely detailing with ambience”.
Moore said visitors had commented that they enjoyed the clever use of sound and light, and the surprising ceramic seed pods by Tim Holman that burst into life.