Garden, Art Festival tickets on sale now

Bay of Plenty festival includes 74 gardens and art stops

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s BOP Garden and Art Festival, which includes new gardens. One of those newcomers to the festival belongs to Judy and Paul Smyth of Tauriko. Their 4.5-hectare site was bare land when they bought it 48 years ago. These days it boasts many features in terms of natural beauty and human-made creativity.

Judy and Paul’s garden will offer something new; namely the 45 peony plants — set to be flowering at festival time — that are the stars of their garden. Peony growth is not generally associated with Bay of Plenty gardens, but the conditions are cool enough at the Smyth’s, with sufficient harsh frosts, to ensure they thrive.

Festival trail goers will note other eye-catchers beyond the property’s hornbeam hedge, such as a knot garden, dove cote, buxus balls clipped with precision, a walled garden area, and a circular herb garden divided up by brick paving. Blooms also include roses, delphiniums, dahlia, foxgloves and aquilegia, with pears and quince examples of fruiting trees.

This year’s festival will include 74 garden and art stops. That includes 57 gardens, nine of those featuring art studios as well. The work of more than 70 registered artists will be displayed on the trail, or Bloom in the Bay the Festival hub, and there will be 17 stand-alone art studio stops. Forty per cent of this year’s stops did not feature in the previous festival.

Festival director Marc Anderson says there’s plenty at this garden tour stop to please the eye.

Festival goers are always intrigued, he says, to see what new offerings the biennial festival presents.

“They won’t be disappointed. This year’s festival offers some wonderful new inclusions, in terms of both gardens and art, and the calibre remains high across both,” he says.

Also new and exciting, Marc says, is the festival’s hub where Bloom in the Bay events will be held. This will be along The Strand’s waterfront green area.

Tickets to the November 14-17 festival are available at a special price until May 12.

For information, visit www. gardenandartfestival.co.nz