Connor Burgin, 7, and brother Zac have transformed a play space into an award winning garden. Photo/Tania Whyte
Connor Burgin, 7, and brother Zac have transformed a play space into an award winning garden. Photo/Tania Whyte
Connor and Zac Burgin's garden originally started as a place where they could play without destroying the lawn.
Now the Whangarei brothers have transformed that part of their yard into a nature garden complete with a bug hotel, gnome houses, a noughts and crosses game, salad greens, berries, sunflowers, swan plants and more.
It's won them the Children's Nature Garden category in the national Yates Spring Vege Growing Challenge.
"It was really exciting," Connor, 7, said about winning the competition.
"We made it so we can play and dig without destroying any of the lawn," he said.
The brothers started working on the garden in September last year and while the competition ended in December they continue to work on it.
The bug hotel - each cubby-hole is filled with different foliage for bugs. Photo/Supplied
"We've got tyre seats, bug hotels, gnome houses, noughts and crosses, berries, tunnel trees, a sandpit.
"A bug hotel is a shelf but we've got little cubbyholes - we have sticks, leaves, logs, and pine cones in there so we can bring in bugs to help in my garden. There was a weta and a grasshopper in there," Connor said.
Next to the nature garden is a vegetable garden which Connor says grows carrots, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomatoes, luffas, beans, rhubarb and beetroot.
Connor's favourite part of the nature garden is the tunnel trees which are guava and apple trees pruned to make a tunnel for the boys to ride their bikes through.
Zac, 5, said his favourite part are the gnome houses.
"People are really surprised when they see the garden ... because it's so good," said Connor.
Connor Burgin and brother Zac play noughts and crosses in their garden. Photo/Supplied
The boys also won two mini challenges in the competition. They won an upcycled art challenge which was open to adults, and a challenge making labels for the garden.
For their wins they were awarded with seeds, a book, and Yates garden products.
Mum Rachael, who won the Yates Garden Challenge about three years ago, said she was proud.
"They've been trying to help me in the garden for quite a while. Connor had his first garden when he was 3 or 4 and the year before last he decided he wanted his own big garden and Zac followed suit.
"This has been such a great experience for Connor and Zac. They spend so much time outdoors and now they've got their own patch of garden that they can continue to develop the way they want to," she said.
