It looks like I may not go to Taranaki Garden Festival this year. I think there are too many things about it that are too expensive and hard to do on your own. Plus, I remember going to Taranaki once and the people weren't the friendliest. I asked the visitors centre about going to visit, asking maybe they have accomodations by gardeners hosting as well, so you could stay at a place that actually had a garden, but no, they only have hotels which you pay for that don't have gardens. And they don't want to take you anywhere, there are no garden buses running from town, you basically have to organise everything yourself cos everyone is too busy to care about visitors from Auckland. But one thing they did ask me right off the bat was 'how much do you want to spend?'.
I am not a cash cow.
So sorry Taranaki, I wasn't impressed. They then said oh we've been running this for over 30 years and we not going to change. Okay then.
I've decided to check out the Waiheke Garden Festival instead, which might be more hospitable to visitors. And less of an outlay. I am not sure if my Dad's friend still lives there or if he's now moved to a retirement village (yes they have one on the island, but it's weird how people still need to retire from retirement, cos he moved there in the first place to retire). If so I can go visit I won't check out his own place didn't have much of a garden, his tenant kept plants in pots on the deck and he just had banks of nasturtiums up the back but I could take him along.
Otherwise, I am thinking of holding my own Garden Festival. Having gone to a few, all I need to do is tell everyone that has a garden that one weekend you will open it to visitors, provide maps and how to get there, someone to collect gold coin donations, and give all the money to a charity of my choice. Possibly schools because they need more gardens. I will also make sure I provide a special van/bus tours for people that can't drive or don't have cars. If you see three or more gardens (you will get your map stamped at each garden) you can enter the draw to win a raffle. Also there will be a plant ID game where you have to take a photo of the different plants and find them in each garden, if you find them all you also win something.
I will also ask my school if they can plant their field in sweetcorn for summer to make an amaizing maze.
When people ask why. I just ask why not?
