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  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 spent nine months creating the 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.