MycoRant

What could be cooler than this headline: Fungi and lichen garden wins flower show’s supreme award. Neat! The event was the Ellerslie International Flower Show held at Hagley Park in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The garden, a display of the plant kingdom in light, sound, movement and texture, uses plant materials associated with natural decay to demonstrate nature’s ability to reuse and recycle.

According to one of the judges, it was “simply outstanding.” The display, Life and Death,  was entered by the The Christchurch Botanic Gardens.

Another report describes the award-winning display as a “garden of fungi, mould and lichen on show in a dimly-lit marquee.” And, in Local team weeds out international players, we learn a little more:

Visitors to the garden enter through a “glow-worm” cave and their first view is through a 2.5-metre-high waterfall. An array of fungi (some picked in the wild last weekend), lichen, moss, liverwort and ferns carpet the floor of the exhibit, which has a six-minute cycle of changing lights and sounds. Judge Penny Cliffin said the garden had an amazing array of fungi and an “interesting commentary on decomposition as a basis of life under the ground”. Hawker got the inspiration partly from his mouldy coffee cup.

The nicest write-up on this event is Christchurch Botanic Gardens Wins Supreme Ellerslie Award. Unfortunately, none of these articles offers a very impressive view of the work. If by some chance, a reader in New Zealand happens to have snapped a few good shots, it would be great if you would send a couple to MycoRant for the world to see (hint, hint). The best view of the work can be found at the show’s image gallery (click over on the viewer to see it).

It’s nice to see that people can appreciate a well done, artistically presented work, that highlights the importance of fungi and other “lower” life forms. The official show press release announcing and describing Life and Death was released on March 10th.

Tags: art, Christchurch Botanic Gardens, Ellerslie International Flower Show, New Zealand