Botanic Garden earns quite a laurel

Dunedin City Council Botanic Garden team leader Alan Matchett beams with pride over newly awarded...
Dunedin City Council Botanic Garden team leader Alan Matchett beams with pride over newly awarded status as a "garden of international significance". Photo by Gregor Richardson.
The Dunedin Botanic Garden has joined just four other New Zealand gardens to gain a ranking as a "garden of international significance".

Awarded by the New Zealand Gardens Trust, an organisation established by the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture, the ranking is expected to provide a boost for both city pride and tourism, Dunedin City Council Botanic Garden team leader Alan Matchett said yesterday.

In 2008, the trust instituted the top-tier "international" category, designed to recognise New Zealand's most outstanding gardens.

The Dunedin Botanic Garden, which proved to be the most popular council facility in a residents' opinion survey released this week, joins Larnach Castle garden as the only two in the South Island to achieve the international ranking.

The others are three privately-owned North Island gardens, Richmond in Carterton, Te Kainga Marire in New Plymouth, and Ayrlies Gardens in Auckland.

The criteria for the award included horticultural expertise, health and safety, and the design and flow of the garden, Mr Matchett said the garden was a founding member of the trust, but the award was "not a matter of right": instead, it had to be earned.

Judges used a points system, and looked at the garden as a whole, but also "stopped and talked to staff to see how helpful and knowledgeable they are".

The garden would "definitely" use the award in its advertising and promotional material, and the award was good for Dunedin.

"It's up to us to use it to our best advantage," he said.

"That sense of ownership and pride is a good thing."

The castle garden, the Dunedin Botanic Garden, the Glenfalloch Woodland Garden and the Wylde Willow garden in Abbotsford have been declared gardens of national significance by the trust in the past.

Two assessors visit every garden applying for a garden-of-significance award, and undertake a inspection and assessment to determine the garden's grading.

Gardens of international significance are reassessed every two years.

david.loughrey@odt.co.nz

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