Garden holds teaching exchange

ELEVEN gardening apprentices from various parts of the South Island converged on the Dunedin Botanic Garden for a twoday teaching exchange this week.

Dunedin apprentices also took part in the training, held on Tuesday and Wednesday, including leading the visiting apprentices on tours to various features of the garden.

Dunedin garden geographic and arboretum collections curator Dylan Norfield said the first training exchange event had proved successful and it was hoped to continue the programme in the future, by switching the venue to different gardens.

The teaching exchange had begun after separate inquiries involving gardening apprentices in Christchurch and Queenstown, Mr Norfield said.

It had then been decided to also invite gardening apprentices from Gore and Invercargill to Dunedin, he said.

The teaching exchange had proved a ‘‘great learning experience’’ and had been popular with the apprentices, Mr Norfield said.

PHOTO: GREGOR RICHARDSON Learning experience . . . Philippa Shelling, gardener supervisor at Queenstown Gardens, and Dunedin Botanic Garden apprentice Ben Xie show off a Mexican plant, Furcraea guatemalensis, which flowers only once every 15 years, at an apprentice teaching exchange day at the Dunedin garden this week.