10
Nov
Paloma Gardens – a trip to a foreign land
We only found Paloma Gardens by chance. Derek was speaking to Jack Mayer (he of the driftwood sculpture fame) discussing our website project and Jack had mentioned that Paloma was worth a visit. It certainly was!
Paloma Gardens are owned by Clive and Nicki Higgie who farm the surrounding property. How they manage to maintain these wondrous, exotic gardens is anyone’s guess. It seems to go for miles. The gardens have been landscaped with plants from all over the world, from the jungles of Asia to the deserts of Africa and the Americas. It was so different from what we had seen over the last week at the Taranaki Garden Spectacular. Not a rhodo or a perennial in sight. Instead palms, cycads, aloes, cacti, succulents, all kinds of interesting specimens.
There are several distinct zones, including the Palm Garden, the Desert House, the Garden of Death, the Bamboo Forests, the Jardin Exotique, the Wedding Lawn and the two Arboreta. The garden also includes some very interesting art. We really enjoyed the work by Ivan Vostinar and the New Zealand pottery walk that joins two areas of the garden. It was one of the best collections of pots we have seen for some time.
Paloma has been awarded “Garden of National Significance” by the New Zealand Gardens Trust for the past seven years. These people must know their stuff.
You can stay in the various accommodation on offer at Paloma, celebrate a life event (The Wedding Lawn which also includes a pavilion) and you are also welcome to just picnic in the gardens which are open all year, bar inclement weather.
This property is a credit to the gardeners who must have an amazing sense of humour as testified by some of the signs and the witticism emblazoned fence or they could be just completely insane considering the amount of work involved. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Paloma Gardens and wished we had more time to spend there.