Gardening in New Zealand

Gardening is a popular pastime in New Zealand. A 2007/2008 survey of physical activities found that 43% of New Zealanders had participated in gardening in the previous 12 months.^[1] A range of books, magazines and television programmes are dedicated to the topic.

New Zealand has restrictions on trading during the Easter holiday break, and in recent years garden supply centres have flouted the law and remained open.^[2]

Gardens[edit]

Botanical gardens[edit]

Arboreta[edit]

Events[edit]

Gardeners and horticulturists[edit]

Maggie Barry presented a television show and writes a gardening column
Bob Berry
Lady Anne Berry
William Douglas Cook
Barbara Winifred Matthews
James William Matthews
Eion Scarrow
Emily Stevens

Environmental issues[edit]

With the European settlement of New Zealand, which occurred in relatively recent times from an ecological perspective, a wide range of plants were introduced into the country for both agriculture and for gardens. Many of the plants went on to become invasive species.^[3]

Some notable examples of invasive plants that are used in gardens include:

Agapanthus (Agapanthus praecox)
Blue morning glory (Ipomoea indica)
Old man's beard (Clematis vitalba)

Online hoax[edit]

New Zealand has been at the centre of an online hoax about prohibition of home gardening, where residents of New Zealand supposedly had their gardens containing such plants as avocado trees and feijoa trees confiscated or destroyed. ^[4]

The topic garnered further attention when a blog post in 2020 which was widely replicated on facebook claimed that a new food bill would require home gardeners to obtain authorisation to share home-grown plant matter, giving food safety officers the power to perform raids on property. The post was in fact referring to a 2010 bill that was passed into law as the Food Act 2014, which specifically excludes "seeds... or other plant material intended for planting" from the scope of the legislation. The blog post has largely been debunked as sensationalism.^[5]

References[edit]

^ "Sport, Recreation and Physical Activity Participation Among New Zealand Adults: Key Results of the 2007/08 Active New Zealand Survey" (PDF). SPARC Aotearoa.
^ NZPA (21 April 2011). "Stores to flout Easter laws". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
^ Sullivan, J.J.; S.M. Timmins; P.A. Williams (2005). "Movement of exotic plants into coastal native forests from gardens in northern New Zealand". New Zealand Journal of Ecology. 29 (1): 1–10.
^ Drummond, Josh. "New Zealand's absurd gardening ban once again makes us the laughing stock of the Internet". The Spinoff. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
^ Anonymous. "New Zealand's 'new' Food Bill doesn't ban gardening". AAP Factcheck. Retrieved 24 January 2024.

External links[edit]

New Zealand Gardens Trust
Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture
New Zealand Alpine Garden Society
Garden Design Society of New Zealand
"Garden plants invading our bush" at the Department of Conservation

[1] "Sport, Recreation and Physical Activity Participation Among New Zealand Adults: Key Results of the 2007/08 Active New Zealand Survey" (PDF). SPARC Aotearoa.

[2] NZPA (21 April 2011). "Stores to flout Easter laws". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 20 January 2012.

[3] Sullivan, J.J.; S.M. Timmins; P.A. Williams (2005). "Movement of exotic plants into coastal native forests from gardens in northern New Zealand". New Zealand Journal of Ecology. 29 (1): 1–10.

[4] Drummond, Josh. "New Zealand's absurd gardening ban once again makes us the laughing stock of the Internet". The Spinoff. Retrieved 24 January 2024.

[5] Anonymous. "New Zealand's 'new' Food Bill doesn't ban gardening". AAP Factcheck. Retrieved 24 January 2024.

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