'Gold Dust' scoops the pool at NZ Rose of the Year competition

I popped down to Hamilton on Sunday for the annual New Zealand Rose of the Year competition at the Hamilton Gardens. It was a glorious sunny day with a jovial garden party atmosphere, helped in no small part by the launch of the new Sexy Rexy Rose wine (made by Steve Hotchin, the son of Sam McGredy's late mate Rex who gave this famous rose its name). The Rogers Rose Garden, where the rose trials are held, was in spiffing good shape despite the vandalism efforts of local rabbits. I wish my rose garden looked half as good at this time of the year!
The big winner this year was Balclutha rose breeder David Benny, who pretty much scooped the pool with his
Floribunda 'Gold Dust' (pictured left). It was an absolute stand out - a fantastically healthy rose with masses of amazing apricot flowers set off by stunning, shiny dark foliage. 'Gold Dust' was voted Best Floribunda and went on to win the supreme title of NZ Rose of the Year. It also picked up the Children's Choice award, as decided by local school pupils (the first time the kids have agreed with the adults!) and Sam McGredy also gave it his personal gong for the best New Zealand-raised rose.
The prize for the best Hybrid Tea went to 'Crimson Bouquet' (pictured left), raised by German rose breeder Kordes and entered by Matthews Nurseries. If you're looking for the perfect red rose for picking, one with velvety red petals that are such a rich, radiant crimson that they appear almost to glow, I suggest you order 'Crimson Bouquet' next time you're at the garden centre.
Red was also the colour of the winning climbing rose this year. 'Eiffel Tower 2000' (pictured left) was bred - unsurprisingly - in France by Delbard and entered by Bell Nurseries. It's gorgeous, with dark red, single flowers and glossy foliage. It pipped the local 'Sky Tower', another climbing rose with lofty ambitions.
Finally, the award for the most fragrant rose went to 'Love Me Do', also grown by local breeder David Benny. To be honest, it's not a fantastic looking rose - although it did draw the short straw in terms of its position in the garden, as it gets shaded by a large tree - but the fragrance is delightful. And really, that's what it's alll about, especially if you're a romantic at heart like me.

Homegrown

New Zealand Gardener's new special edition Homegrown has hit the shops this week. It's a month-by-month guide to growing, sowing, harvesting, pickling and preserving all your own fresh fruit and veges. I think it's rather marvellous, but then I would: I wrote it. Homegrown follows my year of living out of my inner-city garden and includes loads of tried-and-tried recipes from our readers.
I made a jar of mint jelly last night (the recipe is on page 67). Mint is one of my favourite garden flavours and I've got a huge bed of it (mint is a terrible thug and takes over if you let it). Unfortunately, my mint only stays looking good for about two months - October and November - then it gets too dry and succumbs to rust, so preserving it makes sense. Mint jelly is traditionally eaten with lamb but it's just as good with new potatoes... or with steamed broad beans. I was given a big bag of broad beans from two readers - thanks Beau and Margaret - on Sunday at Ellerslie. They were delicious! I love broad beans but I'm not so good at growing them. My plants always end up straggly and a bit sad-looking.
I signed over a thousand copies of Homegrown during the Ellerslie Flower Show - my gardening arm is still sore!! You can buy Homegrown in supermarkets and bookstores, or get it online (there's a special subscriber price of $11) from Mags4Gifts.

Ellerslie Flower Show sold to Christchurch City Council

Gosh. That's all I can say about today's news.

Gosh - and good luck, Christchurch.

Roses and mushrooms

This blog is supposed to be about my day at Ellerslie but... oooh... I'm too excited about what I found on my deck when I got home. My grow-your-own oyster mushroom kit has spawned its first batch of baby mushrooms! I was given this DIY project when I was in Dunedin for the rhodo festival a couple of weeks ago (Air New Zealand was none too pleased when I boarded the plane clutching a bag of mushroom-inoculated pea straw, but to their credit I was still allowed on!) I think my first oyster mushrooms will be ready to pick in just a couple of days. Thanks to Shadow Gourmet for giving me the kit. It's quite fascinating - I've wedged the bag up my fig tree trunk to ensure it stays moist and warm, without being in direct sunlight.
Back to Ellerslie. I spent today with the rest of the team, helping out on the New Zealand Gardener Decadent Dessert Garden. (We won gold!) I thought you might like to know which plants in our garden prompted the most questions. The subtropical naranjilla from Incredible Edibles was most asked about. This groovy plant has amazing, purple-veined, furry leaves. I grew it a couple of years ago and it's definitely a talking point, with fabulous foliage and orange fruit that look like a cross between an oval orange tomato and a tamarillo.
Second in the popularity stakes? The roses. Our designer Trina Tully has included a range of wonderfully fragrant roses including Rosa multiflora platyphylla (pictured). This is also known as the 'Seven Sisters Rose' and has richly scented blooms in pretty pink that fade to pale pink and white. 'City of Timaru' is in the front of our garden. It's a pale, creamy apricot rose bred by David Austin. It's divine. 'Rembrandt' is an old damask rose that dates back to 1883. It's even more divine, with petals of pure pink linen and a gorgeous fragrance. We could have sent 'Gypsy Boy' home with any number of visitors today. It's an exquisite bourbon rose with deep crimson blooms. A thorny sod, but oh so beautiful. Mind you, I think 'Cardinal Hume' (pictured) is unrivalled if you're after a beautiful crimson rose. It's a repeat-flowering shrub rose and it's a stunner. Trina has planted the Cardinal on the corners of our berry bed in the centre of the garden. It looks to me like the new 'Burgundy Iceberg', but with more petals. Order it from Wairere Nursery. See you at the show!

And the winners are...

The Supreme Awards were handed out at Ellerslie last night, along with the umbrellas. Ellerslie just wouldn't be Ellerslie without four seasons in one day! Thunderstorms are part of the fun. Mind you, the floral designer who won the Supreme Award for Design Excellence - Denise Gray from Sentiments Flowers - might just have been tempting fate a tad too much with her floral funnel inspired by a tornado. It was very clever... but perhaps next year she could appease the weather gods with a tropical beach scene instead!
The Supreme Award for Landscape Construction and the show's top gong, the Judges' Supreme Award both went to Palmco for their jungle garden. What a deserved winner too. Adam Shuter, the garden's designer, was overwhelmed simply to win gold so I suspect the Palmco crew may have been celebrating long into the night. This garden really is brilliantly executed. It's lush and lavish and shows just how spectacular palms can be in a grove underplanted with greenery. Plus it's a triumph of engineering and transport - they brought six truckloads of palms down from their Kerikeri nursery and some of them are real traffic-stoppers. Literally. They had to be lifted into place using a crane.
I'm going to make it my mission to get around the new Starlight Marquee first off this morning. I've been through half of the exhibits, including Julie Moore and Lynn Cairney's Earth Sharing Life Garden, which picked up the Supreme Award for Lighting Excellence. It's quite an experience, with all sorts of coloured lighting effects, sounds and water features.
And the Supreme Award for Horticultural Excellence was awarded to the Auckland Orchid Club for their display (above) in the Hort Galore Marquee. Rare and unusual orchids, flashy orchids, hanging orchids, psychedelic orchids... you name it, they've planted it.
The weather forecast isn't flash for opening day today but if you need to seek shelter, New Zealand Gardener has a lovely big tent! And a superb supply of bargain umbrellas! See you at the show.

Green thumbs up for Ellerslie: my 5 favourite gardens

Well I've already had a jolly good look around the Ellerslie Flower Show (one of the perks of being an industry insider!) and I have to say that this year's show is looking pretty darn sharp. The show gardens are bigger and better than last year (which is encouraging because last year's crop was a definite improvement on the year before that), the Hort Galore Marquee is full of charm and the new Starlight Marquee, which showcases garden lighting... is very dark! (By the time Jack Hobbs and I stumbled into it, half the lights had been turned off for the night!)

My favourite gardens at first glance? Well, perhaps I'm biased (ok, I admit I'm definitely biased) but the New Zealand Gardener Decadent Dessert Garden is delicious! We commissioned landscape designer Trina Tully to create a compact courtyard garden full of fruiting plants, from dwarf almonds to raspberries, strawberries, coffee berries, pepinos, weeping oranges, espaliered apples and pears and psychedelic naranjillas. It's such a pretty garden, with masses of lavender 'Ruffles', little federation daisies, blue geraniums and marvellously fragrant roses. Trina planted 'Cardinal Hume', 'Gypsy Boy', 'City of Timaru', 'Rembrant' and Rosa multiflora platyphylla - I want them all in my garden now! I had fun showing Sarah Bradley and Astar from TVONE's Good Morning show around the garden today - they've filmed a segment in the garden so keep an eye out for that later in the week. Astar got all inspired and is now threatening her small subtropical city garden with the chop so she can recreate a dessert garden at her place. I've got to say a huge round of thanks to Waimea Nurseries and Incredible Edibles for lending us so many of the fabulous specimen plants in the garden. And don't forget that if you pop in to subscribe during the show, we'll give you a free Tamarillo 'Tango' plant. And we're launching our new special edition, Homegrown at Ellerslie - it covers my self-sufficient journey and is the ultimate guide to sowing, growing, harvesting, pickling and preserving fresh flavours from your garden. Anyway, enough about us... my other favourite gardens (in no particular order) this year are:

Palmco's Palm Jungle is seriously cool (which isn't something I say often about palms, because I'm not a great fan of subtropicals). But this is stunning. They've moved in some SERIOUSLY ENORMOUS palms to create a jungle of huge, towering trunks with a boardwalk wending through the middle. It's incredibly lush and quite spectacular, like a small chunk of rainforest. I'm going to ask them how much the garden would cost to recreate because I reckon it could be well over half a million bucks. Those palms are MASSIVE! It makes me want to put in a grove of palms in the square garden in front of my deck. I've got artichokes there at the moment but now I'm fantasising over fronds!! You'll find Palmco's garden next to Sarah Eberle's Chelsea garden.

The Cactus & Succulent Society have excelled themselves with an utterly charming display of connoisseur cacti in the Yates Hort Galore Marquee. It's so cute, with a quirky shed, a red tractor and wooden boxes planted up with rare and unusual species. I've gone off succulents in recent years because I'm mighty sick of seeing them marooned in river pebbles, but this display is brilliant. It's a reminder of just how inspiring a simple collection of immaculately presented plants can be.

Yates have put together a nostalgic vege patch in the Exhibition Gardens, complete with hay bale coffee table, scarecrows and a raised bed that looks old-fashioned on top, but has very contemporary glass sides so you can see the layers of soil and pea straw inside. I bet the cameras will be snapping as showgoers walk past - it has "crowd pleaser" written all over it.

And The Auckland Vegetable Growers have also created a slice of edible paradise in the Hort Galore Marquee. These exhibitors are the ones who used to create the edible celebrity each year. I defy anyone not to smile when they see this delightful exhibit with its sunflowers crafted from bananas and broccoli, cherry tomato ladybirds, a cottage with cabbage leaf roofing tiles, parsnip butterflies (on second thoughts, they could be pesky giant mosquitoes!), a front fence of leeks... and dozens of other charming details.

Who knew that vegetables could be so adorable? It seems almost wrong to eat 'em!