Do you have NZ's greatest shed?

Press Release                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        17 September 2010

Do you have NZ's greatest shed?

A garden shed which includes a wall sized projection screen, a bar, a dance floor and a disco ball and a hexagonal shed made entirely of recycled materials on a budget of precisely zero dollars are among the entries in New Zealand Gardener magazine’s search for the greatest Kiwi garden shed.

Editor Jo McCarroll launched the search for the most outrageously over-the-top shed (or quirkiest chicken house or most innovative No.8 wire garden-building-on-a-budget) after a British survey found that men spent, on average, a year of their life in the shed.

“It made me think that sheds must have more to offer than I had ever realised,” she explains. “I have – foolishly – only ever viewed them as somewhere to store the lawnmower. And while, to my knowledge no such survey has been done in New Zealand, possibly because the men you’d want to talk to were busy in sheds with ‘special projects’ and could not be disturbed, I assume that given my countrymen’s natural inclination for shed-related pursuits, the average time spent in the shed would be even higher here.”

The winner of the New Zealand Gardener competition will receive what’s surely the ultimate shed accessory a Husqvarna ride-on mower worth more than $5000 and two runners-up will receive more than $1000 worth of grunty tools and garden gear. But the gravitas conveyed by the award will also be useful should any detractors try and suggest that at time spent in the garden shed is the equivalent of time wasted. Indeed one entrant in Whangaparoa made a plea to win the award purely in order to make a point to his wife.

“It is obvious to me and you can see from the photos that I need a larger shed,” he said in his entry. “My wife thinks otherwise and has had the audacity to suggest the remedy would be to get rid of some tools.”

The search for New Zealand’s greatest garden shed closes on October 1. To enter just email a brief written description of why you have the greatest garden shed in New Zealand plus up to five photos to contests@nzgardener.co.nz or post to NZ’s Greatest Garden Shed, PO Box 6341, Wellesley Street, Auckland 1141. Full details on how to enter in the latest issue of New Zealand Gardener.
 

ENDS

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