New Zealand’s Favourite Public Gardens to Visit

January 16, 2020

New Zealand is blessed with many wonderful public gardens to visit, many of which are well regarded by horticultural experts worldwide. Being gardeners ourselves, we enjoy the inspiration visiting public gardens offers, frequently bringing home landscaping and plant ideas from these visits.

We thought it was time to put together a list of top public gardens to visit throughout the country, for you too to enjoy and benefit from visiting.

Visiting NZ’s Public Gardens? You Won’t Want to Miss These!

In no particular order, we’ve collated a list of beautiful and well-worth visiting public gardens throughout the country. They are:

Dunedin Botanic Garden – NZ’s oldest public garden was opened in 1863 and has a scree garden containing a range of NZ natives. It contains plants usually seen on a mountainside and of course, plenty of rocks!
Christchurch Botanic Garden – weaving in and around the River Avon, this stunning flat garden was also opened in 1863. It has many formal English gardens, as well as plenty of European tree species to see.
Wellington Botanic Garden – interestingly enough, this garden was established in 1869 as a place to undertake trials on the suitability of growing plants from overseas in our climate. The camellia walk is not one to be missed if you are keen for a gentle upwards stroll.
Pukekura Park – located in New Plymouth, this bush-based garden features two lakes, plenty of natives and even a Japanese hillside garden to enjoy. It lights up at night with the Festival of Lights every Christmas-New Year period.
Government Gardens – located in Rotorua, the 50 acres it rests on were gifted to the crown by the local Ngati Whakaue people in 1880. It features an area for bowls, petanque, golf and croquet, along with geothermal features (water fountain, anyone?).
Auckland Botanic Gardens – a late bloomer, these gardens only opened to the public in 1982. The major aim for these gardens is the breeding and trial planning of plants within the Auckland environment, as well as the conservation of native plants.
Hamilton Gardens – if you’re in need of some garden theme ideas, then this is the place for you! With Chinese, Japanese and Italian highly themed gardens, be prepared to feel like you have been teleported overseas! Easy to walk around, though rather large, this is a special public garden to visit.

Have we missed out your favourite public garden? Let us know in the comments over on our Facebook page so we can add it to our list!