Christchurch Botanic Gardens
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Wolfgang’s other focus is the Botanic Gardens themselves. One of Christchurch’s most treasured public spaces, attracting millions of visitors each year, he treads a fine line between maintaining the city’s horticultural heritage and building on the garden’s world-wide reputation. To ensure the garden keeps evolving, he’s always on the lookout to create new collections and improving garden areas with the team, while at the same time supporting the research potential.
He is excited by the recently opened one-of-a-kind crevice garden. A collaborative project with the New Zealand Alpine Garden Society (NZAGS), the crevice garden was designed and built in early March by leading North American designer Kenton Seth. Society members helped him build the crevice garden using local Halswell Quarry stone to match the original rock garden laid out in 1939. Plants will be added later when the garden has settled. ‘I think this new area, which is part of a refresh of the whole rock garden, will be a unique highlight,’ says Wolfgang.
In time, he would like to develop the native garden more, and develop the Gondwana and Children’s Garden with the team. He would also love to see better access to what goes on in the tree canopy, giving nature-lovers a view of the forest canopy, a world that’s seldom seen close by. Maybe via a lookout or an elevated walkway added to the gardens to enable a view from the top, getting people amongst the crowns. ‘It gives you an entirely different view. I just love that.’
But for now, he is enjoying everything the gardens have to offer.
In a loop of the Avon River, bordered on three sides by the green expanse of Hagley Park, lie the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. Visited by more than 1.1 million visitors each year, it is one of the city’s most popular attractions.
As part of the Canterbury Association’s plan for the settlement of Christchurch, 500 acres was set aside on the west of the town centre for Hagley Park and the Government Domain (now the Botanic Gardens).
On 9 July 1863 the first Government Gardener, Enoch Barker, planted an English oak to commemorate the marriage of Queen Victoria’s eldest son Prince Albert Edward to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Botanic Gardens grew from there.
Before long plants were brought in from around the world – initially from Tasmania and eventually from countries as far away as India, Nepal and China. Within the grounds, it now has more than 10,000 exotic and native plants, as well as some of the oldest trees found anywhere in New Zealand.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE
Over the years, each curator has left an indelible legacy on the gardens adding features such as the Victoria Lake (1897), Peacock Fountain (first installed in 1911), numerous glasshouses including Cunningham House, Magnetic Observatory, Tea Kiosk, rose gardens, rock garden and other show houses, as well as many plant collections.
Today, the Botanic Gardens comprise of 21 hectares with Hagley Park consisting of 164 hectares of land. It is open from 7 am daily. Admission is free.