A private escape from modern technology, a beautiful backyard storage space and a garden that encourages learning from play – Grow Ō Tautahi’s stunning Sheffield Exhibition Gardens will showcase inspirational garden and landscape design.

Grow Ō Tautahi, with support from executive recruitment firm Sheffield, is delighted to host Xteriorscapes Landscape Architects and Gill Landscapes, Billygoat Landscape Architects and Bayley Luu Tomes Landscape Design at the inaugural Christchurch Garden Festival, 20-22 March in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens.

Festival Director Sandi MacRae says the exhibitions feature leading design and landscape architecture concepts.

“Our three exhibition gardens will be a source of inspiration and surprise for visitors to the Festival. The designs are all very different, featuring some wonderful ideas and garden concepts. They are all visually stunning, but also carry different messages and ideas about how we use our outdoor spaces.

“The gardens will be re-used, with one going to a pre-school after the Festival, another to the garden of a new home under construction in Christchurch and the third in the designer’s own backyard.”

The exhibition gardens are:

• Xteriorscapes Landscape Architects and Gill Landscapes – exploring the concept of growth through the eyes of our children, the production of our food, and care for our indigenous ecosystems. A garden where tamariki can begin to understand how the landscape has been shaped, identify where their food comes from, and know what it means to live sustainably.
• Billygoat Landscape Architects – showing that typical utility/garden storage spaces can be beautiful as well as functional. These necessary areas in a garden are often tucked away out of sight, but should be celebrated and designed into inviting places to be in.
• Bayley Luu Tomes Landscape Design – named “You and I”, the garden has been designed to encourage less face time with devices and more face time with our loved ones. It is based around a central sculpture, called the “Upside down heart,” that allows you to sit face to face with your loved ones, or side by side with friends or just some quite time on your own. 

Design plans of the three gardens are available on request.