TE Henui Cemetery, a beautiful garden setting.
IN the weekend I went down to New Plymouth with some friends to garden ramble around some of the beautiful gardens in the Taranaki Garden Festival. What I didn’t know was that along side the main event, there is also an art trail and a fringe garden ramble so really I needed a week, not a weekend! I love seeing other people’s beautiful gardens; it’s a great way to get ideas of garden layout, how to create vistas, plant combinations that look great together and lots more. While there were many stunning gardens, the two stand outs for me were Te Henui Cemetery which is a must anytime you are visiting New Plymouth, the beautifying of this cemetery started 15 years ago by a passionate gardener and now there is a group of ladies that maintain the gardens. The gardens are set around the older part of the cemetery in-between graves and on top of it is truly a wonderful place to visit. It has a 5-star Tripadvisor rating, so if you are down that way, you won’t be disappointed by the visit. The other garden was Black Gates which is set on 1.9ha with a sustainable garden from veggies, fruit trees, microgreens and livestock. The composting they have set up is amazing but the two take aways were the two boxes side-by-side, no bottoms with mesh separating them. They both had lids and the first box was filled with cow manure, where the worms came in and turned it into the most finest, yummiest-looking compost I have ever seen. Then when the worms have done their job, it is ready for the garden and the other box is filled with the cow manure and the worms migrate through the mesh to start the process again. They also had a nifty simple idea for home composting made out of plastic safety fencing mesh and some windbreak, which I will share another time. So if you get a chance to go on a garden ramble this spring/summer, I highly recommend it, as you will come away with all sorts of ideas.
