Gardening in New Zealand
Gardening is a popular pastime in New Zealand. A 2007/2008 survey of physical activities found that 43% of New Zealanders had participated in gardening in the previous 12 months. A range of books, magazines and television programmes are dedicated to the topic.

New Zealand has restrictions on trading during the Easter holiday break, and in recent years garden supply centres have flouted the law and remained open.

Gardens
Ayrlies Garden
Caccia Birch House
Dunedin Chinese Garden
Government Gardens
Ohinetahi
Parnell Rose Gardens
Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust

Botanical gardens
Auckland Botanic Gardens
Bason Botanic Gardens
Christchurch Botanic Gardens
Dunedin Botanic Gardens
Gisborne Botanical Gardens
Hamilton Gardens
Otari-Wilton's Bush
Wellington Botanic Garden

Arboreta
Eastwoodhill Arboretum
Hackfalls Arboretum

Events
Ellerslie Flower Show
Auckland Flower Show
Taranaki Garden Festival

Gardeners and horticulturists

Maggie Barry presented a television show and writes a gardening column
Bob Berry
Lady Anne Berry
William Douglas Cook
Barbara Winifred Matthews
James William Matthews
Eion Scarrow
Emily Stevens

Environmental issues
With the European settlement of New Zealand, which occurred in relatively recent times from an ecological perspective, a wide range of plants were introduced into the country for both agriculture and for gardens. Many of the plants went on to become invasive species.

Some notable examples of invasive plants that are used in gardens include:
Agapanthus (Agapanthus praecox)
Blue morning glory (Ipomoea indica)
Old man's beard (Clematis vitalba)

Online hoax 
New Zealand has been at the centre of an online hoax about prohibition of home gardening, where residents of New Zealand supposedly had their gardens containing such plants as avocado trees and feijoa trees confiscated or destroyed.  

The topic garnered further attention when a blog post in 2020 which was widely replicated on facebook claimed that a new food bill would require home gardeners to obtain authorisation to share home-grown plant matter, giving food safety officers the power to perform raids on property. The post was in fact referring to a 2010 bill that was passed into law as the Food Act 2014, which specifically excludes "seeds... or other plant material intended for planting" from the scope of the legislation. The blog post has largely been debunked as sensationalism.

Plants 
Feijoa sellowiana are popular garden plants in New Zealand, which produces one of the most popular fruits in New Zealand.

See also
New Zealand Gardens Trust
Culture of New Zealand
Environment of New Zealand

References

Further reading

External links
New Zealand Gardens Trust
Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture
New Zealand Alpine Garden Society
Garden Design Society of New Zealand
"Garden plants invading our bush" at the Department of Conservation