Programme
| Tue 26 Nov | Wed 27 Nov | Thur 28 Nov | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morning | 7:00 – 8:00: Breakfast Knox College 8:30: Bus pickup 9:00 – 9:45: Rex Thomson Garden 10:00 – 12:00: Dunedin Northern Cemetery | 7:00 – 8:00: Breakfast Knox College 8:30: Bus pickup 8:45 – 9:15: Midge Ruka Garden 10:30 – 11:15: Free time in Lawrence 11:25 – 11:50: Lyn Taylor Garden | |
| Afternoon | 12:30 – 12:40: Dunedin Railway Station Heritage Roses 1:00 – 3:00: Wylde Willow Garden and Lunch 3:15 – 4:30: Beryl Lee Garden 4:45 – 5:15: Otago University Heritage Rose Garden | 12:45 – 2:00: Stonehouse Café and Garden 2:15 – 3:15: Ramage Garden Fruitlands 4:00: Arrive Cromwell Conference Venue | |
| Evening | Accommodation Knox College, Dunedin. Dinner free choice. Choice of restaurants at the Gardens Village within walking distance. | 6:30: Dinner Knox College |
Gardens
Rex Thomson Garden
Rex Thomson Garden is a small woodland garden with a significant number of old-fashioned roses, English roses, and a few modern roses. All roses are named. There are also groundcovers and many rare and beautiful perennials, a collection of hostas, clematis, rare native trees, and flowering shrubs.
Dunedin North Cemetery
This Victorian garden cemetery was designed by John Loudon in 1872. After years of neglect, a restoration project lead by Heritage Roses Otago, has transformed the site into a place of beauty. Memorial plantings of trees and roses made by plot owners over 150 years ago makes this cemetery unique in New Zealand. The restoration has included the planting and maintaining a further 1500 heritage roses.
Dunedin Railway Station
This small garden is a collection of heritage roses donated to the Dunedin City Council by Heritage Roses Otago to mark the millennium. The roses were chosen to emphasise the bluestone of the historic and famous Dunedin Railway Station.
Wylde Willow
Beryl Lee Garden
University of Otago
This is a collection of heritage roses donated by Heritage Roses Otago four years’ ago to mark the 150th anniversary of the University of Otago.
Midge Ruka Garden
Midge Ruka Garden is a small garden started from bare clay 10 years ago. It features old Roses and David Austin roses. Roses are grown up structures and trees. Companion plantings are of clematis and perennials. The concept is to paint a picture in the garden.
Lin and Jim Taylor Garden
Lin and Jim Taylor’s Garden is in the old gold-mining town of Lawrence. It is about 0.4ha. The garden has been built over 25 years from a bare paddock. Lin and Jim have designed their own cottage style, with shrubs, roses, perennials, and trees. There is also a large vegetable garden and orchard garden.
Stonehouse Café and Garden
Ramage Garden
The Cape Broom hotel was built by John Kemp in 1874, replacing a smaller hotel and post office built in 1870. John Kemp was an Englishman who came for the gold rush and bought the land around the hotel and the subsequent Obelisk gold field behind. Kemp sold the hotel to John Dowdall in 1900 and the hotel burnt down in 1910 at the end of the productive gold extraction.
Kerry Stevens and Gail Banks bought the property in 2000 and applied to the council to create a public garden and park for people to visit, though it never eventuated. They also built a small cottage on the site. These were the two people who had the vision to start creating the English-style park which is here today. The oak trees are the original trees from 1870 and could have possibly been an avenue along the old road.
In 2009 Stuart and Dianne Duncan bought the property and took the gardens around the house in a new direction but left the park relatively untouched. In 2013 they incorporated the cottage into the house you see now, did the remedial work on the hotel, hexagonal dairy, one of only 3 ever built in New Zealand, and created the hedged vegetable garden. The old trees at the front and along the drive were removed, and the garden plan developed with 138 rose bushes, incorporated into a red garden, a white garden and mixed colour garden.