The Hamilton Garden

Saturday morning we walked about 15 minutes to the car rental agency and picked up our reserved car. Since the day was quite overcast and cool, we decided that we would take a look at the public Hamilton Gardens instead of driving directly to the Coromandel Peninsula for a hike. It was the right choice.

The Hamilton Gardens is a large city park laid out along the Wailkato River featuring woodland walking areas, cycling paths, a large pond, and various garden “collections”. It is free and open to the public. We weren’t expecting to see much in bloom since it is well into fall here--like November back home. We decided to explore the interesting sounding Paradise Garden Collection which focuses on “…the most significant enclosed garden design traditions”.  There were six different gardens strikingly different from each other. We were enchanted!! The creative designers of these gardens had alot of fun--the pictures will tell the story.

Japanese Garden of Contemplation from 14th-16th century....

English Flower Garden from 19th centruy.......

Chinese Scholar's Garden from 10th-12th Century........

American West Coast Modernist Garden from 20th Century.....

Indian Char Bagh Garden from 16th-17th Century............

Italian Renaissance Garden from 15th-16th Century..........

After these six gardens, we just had to have a snack on the outdoor veranda of the café to energize us to tackle the Productive Garden Collection. Here there were four different gardens--traditional Maori horticulture, kitchen garden, herb garden, and sustainable backyard garden. (No space for MORE pictures--aren't you relieved?)  We loved them all.  If we lived nearby, we would probably visit the Hamilton Garden every couple of months!