THE LAST GARDEN

This is the last garden on the trail that I am going to post about.  I had been there when I first moved to Whangarei so about 8 or 9 years ago.  There is a garden around the house with a magnificent view  over the lake that the owners made from a swampy area.   We then walked through some native bush with large rocks thrown up by a nearby volcano many moons ago.  This brought us to the other side of the lake and the walk back up to the house.

The house

The view from the house across the lake

Walking through the bush with the volcanic rocks.

The lake

ANOTHER GARDEN

We visited 8 gardens on Sunday, the two small ones I have posted about.  They were all interesting and very different.  This was another spectacular one.  The owner was telling us that they bought the property fully developed 3 years ago but continue to work on it.  The long drive to it was interesting but neither of us thought to take a photo of it.   Doug was thrilled to come across the pigs as he used to keep pigs many years ago.

There were lakes everywhere and the plantings were wonderful.

MORE GARDENS

We went to see more of the open gardens on Sunday.  Here are the first two they were both quite small gardens.

The first garden was mainly bromeliads but was very colourful and it was unusual to see a large bronze statue in such a small garden.  There was also lots of pots and garden art.

The second garden was also small and colourful and on the narrow garden at the back of the house used several mirrors to great effect.

GARDEN SAFARI DAY 2

This was the first and most impressive garden yesterday.  It was a bare paddock 20 years ago and even the palm trees had been grown from seed.  

As we were leaving we spotted their dog being very patient.

We did go to some more gardens but the promised rain came so no more photos.  

GARDEN SAFARI

We had a most enjoyable day out today on a Garden Safari.  Today was on a bus and tomorrow and Sunday will be under our own steam in different areas.  The forecast was for rain showers but we were lucky although I doubt if we will be tomorrow.
 

We had a quick stop at the beach.