A peaceful spot
The best thing about a garden is having the chance to enjoy it, as Clive and Sandra Mangin found yesterday in a peaceful spot at Tupare during the Taranaki Garden Festival.
For the story and pictures,
Visitors were treated to ‘‘beautiful Taranaki’’ weather for the first weekend of the region’s garden festivals.
The Taranaki Garden Festival, the Taranaki Fringe Garden Festival and the Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail all began on Friday, drawing people from near and far.
The festivals showcase the region’s best gardens and backyards and run until November 10.
Patricia Goldfinch, of Whanganui, just happened to be staying in New Plymouth with her family when she realised the garden festival was on. Yesterday she travelled around five different gardens and was impressed with what she saw.
‘‘They were all beautiful,’’ the 69-year-old said.
Goldfinch said she’d been to Taranaki garden festivals in the past, but never visited the gardens she saw this weekend.
Her favourite pick was the Armstrong Garden in Waitara, where Alathea and Bill Armstrong have created their own English cottage-garden style, and Goldfinch said the colours, and roses, were very her.
‘‘They’re stunning. It was a beautiful Taranaki day.’’
Goldfinch loves gardens herself and said she was gaining inspiration from the Taranaki gardens to take back to Whanganui.
The Taranaki Garden Festival gardens cost either $5, $10 or $15 per person per garden and both the Taranaki Fringe Garden Festival and Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail cost $2 per person per garden.