A garden for all the seasons, Longbush Cottage 20 is particularly splendid in Spring, thanks to the majestic tulip.
Over the past six years, Luke Gardner has planted thousands of tulips throughout the garden, including an additional 6000 bulbs from 35 varieties planted this year, making the annual Longbush Cottage Tulip Festival on the first weekend of October a must do.
The festival is an opportunity to stroll through the different garden rooms enjoying colour-themed displays planted in borders and an extensive collection of pots around the garden. Tulips are treated as border plants and used as part of perennial borders to extend the flowering season rather than as a standard bedding plant.
Luke too will also be in the garden all weekend, on hand to answer questions about the tulips.
“ They (tulips) are just extraordinary. They burst out of the ground like these jewels. There are so many different colours and varieties, it is so much fun creating different combinations and amazing displays,” Luke says. Longbush Cottage garden is on a one hectare block, which until 2015 was largely a bare paddock.
“When we arrived, there was virtually no garden to speak of other than a small rose garden and a few trees scattered around the property . . . a blank canvas waiting to be planted,” Luke says.
“From the very beginning I was on a journey to make a garden. Watching it come together is fun and very satisfying.”Longbush Cottage is a popular garden to visit, being just 20 minutes from Martinborough, on the Hinakura-Longbush Road, with many visitors combining cellar door visits in Martinborough with a trip to the garden.
For more on Longbush Cottage visit, longbushcottage.co.nz.
DETAILS: Saturday and Sunday, 1- 2 October, 10am-4pm. Longbush Cottage, 1023 Longbush Road, Carterton. Entry $10
