Garden Guru: Pride of the south

Robert Watson's futuristic design for the Canterbury Horticultural Society. Photo / Herald on Sunday

So the Ellerslie circus tents have been pitched at their pretty new venue in Hagley Park, and everyone in Christchurch, if not most of the South Island, has their ticket and is eager to be first into this grandest of garden spectacles.

We are all hoping for a metamorphosis - but one that retains enough of the old winning formula to enable us to be comfortable with the facelift.

So far the signs are promising. South Islanders love their flowers and know how to grow and display them, so the society tents and floral-art marquees promise to be bulging at the seams.

Other old favourites - including the speaker series, Starlight Marquee and sculpture exhibitions - will be there, but the organisers have worked hard to inject some South Island Botox into the 13-year-old formula.

One new area is A Taste of the South, dedicated to specialist regional cuisine.

Councils will be battling it out in flower-bed competitions and the public can take part in a garden-photo competition.

In the end though, it's the gardens that will make the show.

This year there's a respectable 28 on offer and once you have waded through all the eco-sentiment there looks to be some genuine high-wire acts on offer when the big top opens this week.

As with the old Ellerslie, the resident Botanic Garden doesn't want to miss the fun. Christchurch's offering this year, Swamp Modern, will sing the praises of the indigenous flora that grew around these parts before Christchurch's pancake-like contours were drained.

Green, small and almost flowerless swamp plants are never going to blow your socks off like a rose or a dahlia, but young designers Kylie Smith and Christopher Greenshields have taken up the cause using a slick and stylish urban courtyard with perspex planters and dribbling water to hoist these humble creatures on to a contemporary catwalk.

They have incorporated, rather successfully, a green wall stacked with tactile adiantum and pteris ferns that you can stroke without having to bend.

I'm immensely attracted to the community garden movement that is becoming a growing force in this country. Rod Lawrence told me about his work just over the hills at Lyttelton. There the project is housed within the walls of the old jail, which like everything in the town, looks across the harbour.

Rod says that most of the people who get involved have gardens of their own but come to the community garden for the social aspect.

Everyone from the elderly to pre-schoolers come to the Wednesday work parties where the great shared lunch is as much a drawcard as the prospect of healthy, organic produce to take home at the end of the session.

Produce is shared on a "sweat equity" basis - the more time you put in the more you take home. What is left is sold in the farmers' market around the corner.

Along the way everyone is educated about living in tune with the seasons, with their environment, and with each other. Rod's initial idea has been honed by designer Liz Briggs and a team of 12 key volunteers.

The steep site is to be, if not recreated, then hinted at by the Ellerslie evocation Dig This, which includes recycled wharf bollards and even the authentic jail gates.

Vegetables were bound to be a popular theme this year. Experienced Christchurch designer Robert Watson is creating a futuristic vision of growing your own for the Canterbury Horticultural Society, whose members are keen to entice a new generation of gardeners to take to their seed-trays.

Rob hasn't had as long as he'd like to prepare his A Taste of Tomorrow, a totally edible take on the traditional potager.

"You need to start two years in advance to really do it well," he says.

Yet despite the specially chosen fruit trees being hit by late spring frosts, Rob is upbeat about how things are coming together.

Rob grew up in a vege-growing family and has his own potager, but this exhibit he describes as a lush and sensual take on the theme.

The garden will feature, among other things, a water purifying stream complete with watercress bed and a giant woven onion head you can sit in.

And yes, there is bit of what all good show gardens need - a little cheating. "I can't say I will be tying apples on the trees just so they look pretty but I have popped in a passionfruit vine" Rob says.

"It's not hardy here in Christchurch but this is a national event after all."

The Ellerslie International Flower Show, Christchurch, March 11 to 15. www.ellerslieflowershow.co.nz