Designer seeks couple to marry in exhibition garden

Ellerslie designer seeks couple to marry in exhibition garden

The Ellerslie International Flower Show has begun a nation-wide search for a couple to get married in the Straight from the Heart exhibition garden at this year’s Show.

Christchurch Landscape Architect Olive Screen has designed a wedding-themed garden for Ellerslie 2012 and is hoping the garden will host the first-ever wedding to be held at the Show.

Olive, who is also a marriage celebrant, has been involved in Ellerslie in the past, winning bronze in 2010 for Tohunga’s Garden, which she designed for Malcolm McBride from Letz Go Native.

This year Olive’s garden design, Straight from the Heart will be constructed by Pohutukawa Landscape Ltd. It features a big heart-shaped lawn in the central area of the 10m x 10m exhibition space, over which hovers a smaller heart-shaped deck.

In designing the garden, Olive says she researched marriage, looking at where the influences have come from over the years, the old-fashioned, historical and biblical connections about what marriage and weddings are all about. “It won’t be a traditional garden with roses and buxus hedging, but what the planting palette promises is a garden that harks back to those historical and biblical connections.”

She says she was inspired to create something that was “cheery and happy” and yet rich and meaningful, with a little bit of romance.

“I didn’t want anything to do with the earthquake; no demolition materials, recycled bricks or crumbling walls. I wanted the garden to be about new beginnings and happy endings. This is a garden where dreams will be realised.”

If a couple can be found, Olive will officiate at the wedding during the show, being held from 7 to 11 March in Christchurch's North Hagley Park.

Interested couples should contact Olive via email: olivescreen@yahoo.co.nz or on 027 289 1006.

• Ellerslie International Flower Show, North Hagley Park, 7 to 11 March 2012. Early Bird tickets are available for $29 at www.ellerslieflowershow.co.nz until February 13.

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