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.
