FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

03 April 2017

NELMAC GARDEN MARLBOROUGH CELEBRATES COMMUNITY INNOVATION WIN AT THIS YEARS CAWTHRON AWARDS.

Nelmac Garden Marlborough has been awarded winner of the Community Innovation category at this year’s Cawthron Marlborough Environmental Awards.

For over twenty years, Nelmac Garden Marlborough has sustained interest in Marlborough’s environment and attracted visitors to the region with the annual four-day festival, designed to promote and celebrate gardening and the Marlborough environment.

“We view the environment as one big garden” says Garden Marlborough President Tim Crawford, “it’s all about bringing people into the environment and working with it.” Workshops run during the festival are often directly concerned with improving soils and maintaining biodiversity, encouraging participation from all ages.

Every year, profits raised by the charity art auction at the Saturday night garden party are channelled back into local community projects to help achieve the organisation’s vision to promote the pleasures of gardening and to enhance Marlborough’s environment. Over the years this has included providing a shade tree and edible garden in local schools, plantings in public spaces including the Taylor River reserve, Wairau hospital and Marlborough airport, and recently the establishment of a scholarship to support students studying Level 4 Horticulture at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology.

Judges Kay Saville-Smith and Paul Millen noted that “Garden Marlborough is an organisation that has become part of the fabric of Marlborough, with a commitment to gardening as a pathway to educating people to care for biodiversity and the environment.”

This year New Zealand’s premier garden event runs from 9-12 November. Tickets to New Zealand’s premier garden event go on sale 30 June 2017. Visit www.gardenmarlborough.co.nz

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