New Titoki garden opens

Ruapehu Bulletin, 10 November 1992, Page 7

New Titoki garden opens

A coach load of American tourists will shortly be making their way to Titoki Point gardens to celebrate in style the opening of an American garden on 14 November. The tourists are from Pennsylvania and members of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Their president, Donald Felley, will open the American garden at Titoki Point, a celebrated

New Zealand garden on a hill country station half an hour's drive from Waiouru. The Americans are making the journey because they are 'obsessed' with gardening, says Titoki Point' s owner, Gordon Collier. "The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society is one of the key garden organisations in the United States." Mr Collier was re£

sponsible for the garden's design, along with Andrew Bunting, a Philadelphian on a world tour who heard about Titoki Point, stopped off to investigate and stayed. Messrs Bunting and Collier worked for a month to plant Kentucky coffee trees, sweet bays, dwarf chestnuts and American wild-flowers in a corner of the garden. The American garden runs the length of an 80-year-

old Californian Redwood walk in Titoki Point, a garden which is six-acres and growing. In the middle of the garden a log seat will be unveiled, especially carved along mid-West American lines and inscribed with a verse from American poet May Thielgard Watts. Titoki Point was first planted 27 years ago and is now a major feature on

the world garden map. It has featured on television channels throughout the United States and Britain, as well as the Australian Garden Journal, Pacific Horticulture (San Francisco) and Garden Design - the magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects. The Colliers, who have farmed the station around Titoki Point for over 100-years, now welcome over 5,000 visitors

a year to the spectacular garden. They have developed a camper-van and camping facility on site for visitors. An on-site shop offers visitors dried flowers and gifts from the farms, as well as homebaking and teas.

A number of Americans now living in Taihape and elsewhere in New Zealand will join the opening day celebrations. As the American poet said, "Nature never betrayed the heart that loved her."