Search is on for the nation’s top gardener

Press Release                                                                                                      

28 April 2009

The search is on for the nation’s top gardener – with $20,000 in prizes

Who will be voted NZ Gardener magazine’s 2009 Gardener of the Year?

The search for the country’s keenest pair of green thumbs has been launched, with NZ Gardener magazine, in association with Bunnings Warehouse, calling for nominations for 15 regional champions to compete for the national title.

Each regional winner takes home a $1000 prize package of gardening products, with the supreme winner scooping $5,000 worth of products from Bunnings Warehouse along with a luxury trip for two to the 2010 Ellerslie International Flower Show.

The 2008 winner was Sister Loyola Galvin from Wellington; a nun at the Island Bay Home of Compassion who set up a rent-a-vege-plot scheme for apartment dwellers in the capital. 

“Our annual search for NZ Gardener’s Gardener of the Year aims to recognise and reward the country’s unsung horticultural heroes – those passionate grassroots gardeners who share their love of gardening with their local community,” says NZ Gardener editor Lynda Hallinan.

NZ Gardener is calling for readers to nominate their region’s most inspirational gardeners to help find 15 regional winners, from which the public will vote for the supreme winner.

“We’re not looking for gardeners with the most manicured lawn, well trimmed box hedging or those who can grow largest pumpkins,” says Hallinan.

“This competition is about honouring those who use gardening to give something back. Last year’s regional winners’ included a grandfather who was pioneering banana growing in Gisborne, a Nelson man mentoring families who wanted to grow healthy food at home and a West Coaster who had rejuvenated the garden at her local primary school to teach kids to grow their own.”

Regional winners will be selected from Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu-Wanganui, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast, Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

Each regional winner takes home a $1,000 prize package, including: $100 Kings Seeds voucher; Over $100 of Yates tomato products; $100 to spend on Daltons potting mix & compost; $100 worth of KiwiGold plants; $100 of Scotts lawn & garden fertiliser products; $100 Morris & James vouchers; A bianco 20m retractable hose reel worth $230; McGregor’s stainless steel spade, fork & secateurs; 2009 Ellerslie International Flower Show double pass; Tui certified-organic Eco-range of garden care products worth $90; A box of fabulous Flower Carpet roses and a 12 month subscription to NZ Gardener.

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