Lakes & Streams
Key features: Half-day tour of town and country gardens where water is always integral to the design, showcasing park-like, expansive settings, romantic French-inspired massed plantings, and a unique Japanese garden sanctuary.
Twenty-two years ago, Moritaki, at the foot of the Wither Hills, was bare clay farmland. Now it’s a tranquil and inspiring green oasis, featuring solely New Zealand native plants and full of bird life; and incorporating a unique water feature by a Japanese landscape designer.
This romantic garden of massed flowers in hazy pastels is bisected by the amazing Spring Creek,
its bridge inspired by Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny. 150 different varieties of hydrangea – known as ‘Hortensia’ in France – fill the garden’s shady areas and are as colourful as Huguette herself.
This garden also features on the Wai Tata tour
This eleven-year-old garden was carved out of a large swampland area, creating a lake as a focal point within a park-like setting. A large orchard, vegetable plots and floral picking garden all hide behind clipped protective hedging. The garden is a little piece of paradise for its hardworking owners.
This garden also features on the Vista tour
