Lucy Ryan is confident Hamilton Gardens will continue to be popular with Waipā residents despite the city council’s decision to introduce an entry fee for out of towners.
Huntly-born and Hamilton educated gardens director Lucy Ryan in the Japanese garden, her favourite spot. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
The gardens’ director estimates about a third of the record 537,584 people who visited the enclosed gardens in the year ended June 30 were domestic visitors.
And anecdotally she knows a big percentage of those were from satellite towns like Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Morrinsville, Matamata, Ngāruawāhia, Ōtorohanga, Te Kūiti, Putāruru and her own hometown – Huntly.
The cost – $20 to visit the enclosed gardens which accounts for only 10 per cent of the gardens themselves – is unlikely to put people off, she says.
She compares that with what visitors pay when they visit Kew Gardens in London or Hunter Valley Gardens in Australia.
Landscaping in and around the new entry is almost complete. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
“I do understand that people have a huge sense of ownership over this place and it’s a beautiful, special place. But we just had to draw a clear line,” says Ryan.
Which is why the gardens has introduced an annual $39 pass if bought before December 31. It is free for under 16 year olds and there are discounts for Community Services and SuperGold card holders.
The award-winning Hamilton Gardens – which regularly features in Tripadvisor’s list of top things to do in the world – are Kew’s equal after a $12 million investment.
Ryan knows Waipā well – she taught at St Patricks Catholic Primary School in Te Awamutu.
The Te Parapara fertile land, where the gardens are, was covered in food crops and was confiscated during the Waikato Land Wars of the 1860s.
It went on to become a rifle range, a sand quarry, a dog dosing area, a go karts track and the city’s rubbish dump.
Since the Rose Gardens opened in the 1970s, followed a decade later by the first enclosed gardens, Hamilton Gardens has become the most visited place in the city.
But it was Hamilton ratepayers who paid to develop and maintain the gardens and despite politicians repeatedly saying they wanted to introduce an entry fee, none of them were brave enough to take that final step.
Until two years ago, about the time Ryan took over from the long-serving Peter Sergel.
It costs around $6 million a year to run the 50 hectare site which includes the Indian Charbagh, Surrealist, Ancient Egyptian, Chinese Scholars’, and the Italian Renaissance gardens.
Under development are the Medieval, Pasifika and Baroque gardens.
One of the first jobs Ryan had to do at the gardens was to put the design for the visitor centre out to tender.
Daniel Smith, director and registered architect of Edwards White – who designed the Hamilton Gardens Visitor Arrival Centre – with Hamilton Gardens director Lucy Ryan in front of the new entrance which officially opens on September 18 when out of towners must pay an entry fee while Hamiltonians are free.. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Waikato architectural firm Edwards White won the tender to design it and upgrade the forecourt.
“It’s a world class entry for a world class garden,” said Ryan.
One of the biggest challenges was repurposing the original pavilions and turning a third of it into a gift shop and entry point.
Ryan’s goal is to make the gardens more self-sustaining, relieve the ratepayer burden.
“It’s going to enable us to make it better and better and better – to keep growing, keep evolving.”
This mother duck and her chicks check out the new features in the Hamilton Gardens. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
Waikato Business News senior writer Mary Anne Gill with her $39 Hamilton Gardens Pass. She lives outside Hamilton city.
