For gardens
Ohinetahi
Ohinetahi is the home at Governors Bay of distinguished New Zealand Architect Sir Miles Warren, whose garden has been featured internationally. It's a beautifully maintained formal garden of great attraction which is regarded as amongst the best in the world. Immaculate walled and hedged areas surround the historic stone house with long white verandahs. The house looks out over inner Lyttleton Harbour to the south of Christchurch at the base of the Banks Peninsula (Photo 1).
The garden was originally laid out in the 1860s by T. H. Potts, the notable botanist and ornithologist. A framework of mature trees remains, including some original Burbank plums.
Strict and immaculate linear planting designs open into vistas and unexpected enclosures which delight the eye at every turn. A touch of the whimsy in its sculptures and a dramatic swinging suspension bridge over a green clad chasm, containing camellias and rhododendrons, make this a distinctive garden. From the top of a well placed tower, which reminds one of the Tower at Sissinghurst Castle in England, the visitor is given delightful birds-eye views of the formal areas. These include herbaceous borders which accentuate an exotic ogee dome-shaped white gazebo (Photo 2), a red rose garden around a stone font (Photo 3), and a wide lawn with a pair of Robinia pseudoacacia shade trees backed by a contrasting dark green and immaculately clipped hedge of Cupressus macrocarpa.
For art aficionados there is an interesting gallery of modern paintings and prints, which is entered from the garden.