NZ garden holiday tour

Garden lovers inspired by this year’s Chelsea Flower Show — which included the award-winning 100% Pure New Zealand garden — might like to consider a new Boutique Gardens of New Zealand holiday, exclusively offered by English-based specialist Bridge & Wickers.

Horticultural highlights of the 16-night, self-drive tour starts with Auckland’s Domain, a 150-acre park developed around the cone of an extinct volcano, with both formal and winter gardens and a pair of historic glasshouses.

Other horticultural highlights include the global range of plants on show in Hamilton Gardens; Pukeiti, home to one of the world’s great rhododendron displays, as well as an exotic tree collection in the adjacent garden estate of Brooklands; the Lady Norwood Rose Gardens in Wellington; and the 120 year-old Larnach Castle gardens in Dunedin.