Welcome to Friars' Gardens of New Zealand open to visit!

If you like looking at gardens, then this site is for you.

Check out our North Island or South Island Gardens.
These are some of the best in the country.

Or better still come for a visit - there are gardens to suit all needs and all tastes - small/large, flat/hilly, city/rural, native/exotic, alpine/subtropical, green/colourful, and everything in between.

Most gardens are private and open by appointment.
Others are public and can be visited anytime. 

Design an itinerary to suit yourself or your group. After visiting the North Island gardens, take a ferry from Wellington across the Cook Strait and  look at what the South Island has to offer. For such a small country, New Zealand has a huge variety and range of different gardens for the visitor.

Enjoy your visit! Kia ora ♥



Garden of the month:

Awaiti Garden - Wairarapa

 

With tearooms open whenever the garden is open, Awaiti, meaning “little stream”, has evolved around a meandering stream since 1980. Stones from the surrounding farmland are used for lining the waterways and for hand-made walls, with viewing portholes providing glimpses of Japanese irises and lupins beyond. A weir and waterfall are bordered with primulas and lead into pools edged with hostas, astilbes, Japanese irises and azaleas. Jeanette’s favourites are the cottage perennials, which grow in abundance in a riot of colourful beds. A lavender walkway borders a rhododendron garden and old totara railings edge the pathways leading out to the lake. Here Allan has crafted a quaint shingle-roofed brick shed and water wheel backed by swamp cypresses and liquidambars.

More than 300 rhododendrons are planted among silver birches, ash trees and maples which provide glorious autumn colour. A formal yew-edged rose garden is shaped like a clover leaf around a central wishing well. Clipped Thuja plicata ‘Pyramidalis’ separate the garden into lobes and provide a backdrop for the many roses. Archways of climbing roses, pink clematis and mauve wisteria form viewing frames for vistas of cherry blossom. Tree peonies are another spring feature (see close-up photo). White fantail pigeons, doves and peacock complement the garden. The original farm cottage, built in the 1860s, has been converted into tearooms surrounded by a cottage garden, including two turn-of-the-century camellia trees. Awaiti Gardens is now a garden of Regional Significance under the NZGT.