Workshops and Demonstrations
For the Love of Bulbs
Learn all about propagating daffodils; as well as creating your own new varieties
Presented by Bill Carter (from USA)
This Spring discover the art of daffodil propagation and create your own new hybridized cross breeds with your home plants. Alternatively collect the seeds later in the season. Our visiting expert will explain all the elements of choosing parent plants, growing to flowering size and the uniqueness of each seed so you can expand your collection.
Sunday 2pm – 2.45pm Tod Lounge
Be diverse!
Discover your garden’s biodiversity and help preserve natural environments
Presented by Dr Colin Meurk BHU
Learn how you can enhance and bring local plants into your own garden and across the wider neighbourhood – to provide the basic needs for richer wildlife and an ecologically functional and legible landscape.
Sunday 1pm – 1.45pm Tod Lounge
DIY hypertufa trough demonstration
DIY trough and pot construction with hypertufa
Presented by Suzanne Pickford (NZAGS)
Simplicity is the key to these new slim quick-to-produce troughs. Lightweight and moveable.
Saturday 3.30pm NZAGS Stand
Further hypertufa and planting up tips for troughs
Trough and tub planting to recreate natural planting schemes, packing plants in and keeping them happy
Presented by Suzanne Pickford (NZAGS)
Using a few plants bought from the show a trough will be planted up using homemade rocks and a light mix. Tips and tricks for ensuring success.
Sunday at NZAGS Stand
Sowing Tricky Seeds
Germination tips for those tricky, hard-to-start seeds. Demonstration at NZAGS stand
Presented by NZAGS
Come and find out how to encourage those hard-to-start seeds to germinate.
Saturday and Sunday at NZAGS Stand (near Entrance)
Making buttonholes (Children's Workshop)
Creating buttonholes (or boutonnieres) with fresh flowers & foliage picked fresh from the garden
Presented by Avon Floral Art Group
The Floral Art Group invite all children - boys & girls (& parents too).
Anybody & everybody can come along to create buttonholes (or boutonniers) with fresh flowers & foliage freshly picked from the garden.
It's Springtime - time to share this fun tradition - of sharing & wearing buttonholes & posies - organic & sweet - whimsical or rustic.
Everything provided. No booking required.
Saturday 2-4pm Main Stadium
Edible Bouquets
Gift, table decoration and salad all wrapped up together. The perfect potluck posy.
Presented by Cailtin Joy from FREYA FLORA
Taking inspiration from her kitchen garden Caitlin will prepare a beautiful bouquet that’s fit for the dining room table. Fragrant and delicious, she will show you how to use ingredients you may not have thought of to design an edible bouquet.
Sunday11.30am – 12.15pm Tod Lounge
Sowing Sustainably
Local heritage seed raising with sustainable seeds.
Presented by The Southern Seed Exchange
Discover how easy it is to grow healthy plants from seed with the Southern Seed Exchange (SSE).
Join members of the SSE for a concise session on the ins and outs of growing and saving your own seeds. The 45 minute demonstration will cover the basic principles of growing, isolation, harvesting, cleaning and saving seeds.
Working alongside the CHS to promote Canterbury’s heritage seed cultivars they will include a short demonstration and practical where people get to take a 6 cell seed pot to take away.
Sunday 3pm – 3.45pm Tod Lounge
Children Seed Sowing Workshop
Suitable for children of all ages
Presented by Anita Croft (Growing Kiwi Gardeners)
Come and join Anita from Growing Kiwi Gardeners for a seed sowing workshop. Suitable for children of all ages. Older children will make their own seed pots from newspaper, and younger children will sow their seeds into repurposed yoghurt pots. Anita has been running a hands-on gardening programme in early childhood centres since 2018 and has a passion for encouraging children to grow their own food. No booking required.
Saturday 2-4pm Main Stadium
Nurture with Nature
A Special Session for Tamariki
Canterbury Horticultural Society
Enjoy a selection of nature inspired crafts and activities for ages 0 – 10 years old. Adult supervision required.
Sunday 10am – 11am Tod Lounge
Gold coin koha Book Ticket Online
Rhododendrons
Rhododendron care and selection
Presented by Lisa West from Rhodo Direct
An informal talk about various rhododendrons, their use, stylings, what to plant with them and how to care for them.
Rhodo Direct Stand (Lisa’s stand)
Expo Dinner Speaker: Becky Fox Matthews
​
Becky Fox Matthews is a former President of the American Daffodil Society, a Daffodil Judges Instructor, a Davidson County (Nashville) Master Gardener and Speakers Bureau member, and a National Garden Club Judge
Becky Fox Matthews will speak on:
Wildflowers from the Cedar Glades of Tennessee
The Cedar Glades of Middle Tennessee
Travel not far east of Nashville, Tennessee, to a unique ecosystem where limestone is found very close to the soil surface or at the surface withno soil above. This fragile ecosystem supports highly specialized plantspecies, many of which exist nowhere else in the world
Saturday 6pm Baylis Lounge