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News | 3 June 2025
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Behind the blooms at the Botanic Garden ki Paekākā

Gardening is like creating a work of art. Like an exhibition at a museum, the Botanic Garden ki Paekākā team curate and creatively come up with ways to show off interesting plants for the displays for the Begonia House. These stunning displays showcase the weird and wonderful world of plants, all in the name of engaging people in plant conservation and science on a global scale. Look behind the scenes of how the most recent change over was done.

Rows of plants in pots inside a glasshouse.

The Specialist Team of three gardeners Cindy, Rachel, and Tobias are constantly evolving the collection of plants on display in the Begonia House. They consider different ways to arrange plants in interesting and creative dsiplays around our more permanent plants and very rare and special species.  Approximately 600 plants are used over 15 displays. 

To keep things interesting for our visitors, there are two times a year where the displays  get switched out – summer and winter. The reason behind this is so that plants can be propagated and grown from existing stock to prepare for the right season. For the summer period, propagation begins in March. For the winter period, like we are heading into now, the plants were propagated back in August last year. 

It’s all about the long-term gain –some of the filler plants taking six to eight months to grow while the larger plants can take eight to twelve months!