Dunedin Botanic Garden is a Spring Wonderland

This article was first published on 23 Sep 2019.

It’s spring!  Time to take a stroll through Dunedin Botanic Garden enjoy the delights of colour and fragrance.

Drifts of bright yellow daffodils are a classic spring treasure.  Planted in various locations through the botanic garden, they look stunning.  The most accessible spot is the daffodil lawn right beside the upper garden carpark.

Pockets of colour are popping up from the flowering trees and shrubs covered in blooms.  The Rhododendron Dell’s Cherry Walk is flowering right now with its delicate soft pink blossoms characteristic of the Prunus genus.   Rhododendrons are starting to do their thing and camellias are in full force.  Large bright pink flowers on magnolias punctuate the botanic garden.

As well as colour, there’s fragrance from the many spring-flowering trees.

Near the Croque café visitors get a waft of vanilla, not from the morning baking but from the Azara microphylla, the vanilla tree.  Planted before the bridge across the creek, it’s covered in a cluster of tiny yellow fragrant flowers.

As you enter the botanic garden from Gt King Street you are greeted with the display of highly fragrant white flowers from the shrub Viburnum ×burkwoodii (pictured).  This multi stemmed shrub is semi evergreen and covered in spring time with highly fragrant, white flowers.  Arranging this spring hit at home hit is easy as this shrub is very easy-care, able to be pruned to fit any spot.  The best spot is close to the house for enjoying the beautiful vanilla aroma.