Times photos Wayne Martin.

The Earth Sharing Garden created by Howick based landscape designer Lynn Cairney of Fusion Landscape Design and Julie Moore from Plantet Earth was named People’s Choice.

The Earth Sharing Garden also won a gold medal and a supreme award for national lighting.

Manukau City Council’s performance garden won a gold award at the show.

The council says the garden gave show visitors a taste of the Aotearoa that colonial settlers first experienced and featured exciting performers from a range of Manukau cultures. It won the gold award in the retail garden category.

Judges described the garden as ‘really innovative. It captures the essence of this part of the world.’

The colonial theme was chosen to fit with Crawford Reserve in Howick where the garden will now be permanently relocated.

The performance garden starts in Aotearoa with primal dark bush. It then moves through early European responses to the new land, using plants available at the time. The garden ends with the cultivation of crops and produce of the early settlers.

Performing at the garden throughout the show were Chinese umbrella dancers, Indian dancers and a Scottish piper, as well as Manukau’s famous Maori and Pacific Island cultural groups.

Visitors can walk through the garden and see how New Zealand’s flora and fauna changed.

As well as the progression in the plantings, quotes and images tell stories of the pioneers and their experiences.

Previous council Ellerslie exhibition gardens are on show at Mangere Mountain, Lloyd Elsmore Park, Totara Park and Ferguson Oaks Reserve.

An Eye for Sculpture, Manukau’s showcase of 25 well known and emerging artists from around the country, was also sponsored by the council.

Curated by Clevedon sculptor James Wright, the exhibition’s garden setting provided each piece with its own space where it could be viewed from every angle.

The Ellerslie International Flower Show’s supreme award went to designer Adam Shuter of Kerikeri palm business Palmco.

Judging convenor Jan Woodhouse says for the first time patrons at the show were able to walk through the supreme award winner’s display, which had definite “wow” factor.

“It’s a lovely experience walking through, as you are quite separated from the rest of the show.”

International judge Claire Whitehouse was impressed by the design excellence at the show.

East Manukau designers Lynn Cairney and Julie Moore of Plantet Earth and Fusion Landscape collected the prestigious supreme award for national lightening, as well as the people’s choice prize.

Ms Whitehouse says the moody journey through bush and beach was a “magical, multi-media experience with a variety of lightening effects and lovely detailing of ambience”.

Howick Foral Circle received silver in the floral art clubs and societies category.

Beachlands School also proved popular with the judges, with its entries numbers 1 (mosaics collection, monarch lifecycle) and 10 (big bus collection, monarch collection) winning gold in the Manukau beautification garden art section. Point View School’s number 4 and 5 entries (boats and tiles) won merit prizes.  In the Manukau Beautification Trust’s scarecrow competition, the gold medal winner was from Somerville Intermediate (entry 2), with Cockle Bay Primary (entry 2) claiming silver and Maraetai School a merit.