13 March 2009 Strong Lincoln University connections among Ellerslie Flower Show award winners

Twelve awards in the Tertiary Student Design Competition at the Ellerslie International Flower Show have made it a rosy event for Lincoln University landscape architecture students.

That’s three more awards than Lincoln students won in the 2007 Show and seven more than the haul by their nearest rival this year.

The Lincoln University students won two Silver Distinction awards, three Silver awards, five Bronzes and two Merits.

Overall the awards list for the Show contained many Lincoln University names and connections, emphasising the institution’s acknowledged expertise in landscape design. They included  -

Final year Bachelor of Landscape Architecture student Tim Scott, who won a Gold in the Tertiary category at Ellerslie in 2007. This time Tim collected a Silver award in the Exhibition Gardens category with his creation “Silo-Tary Confinement, the Post-Industrial Bach of the Future”.

Also among the Silver winners in this category was the team of Andy Ellis (part-way through a BLA degree) and Danny Kamo (BLA (Hons) 2005) with their blokes’ backyard garden creation “The Crate Escape”.

Awarded a Gold in this category was Lincoln University BLA graduate (1999) Carl Pickens, who founded and runs the “One Earth Matters” landscape architecture company. His entry, called “Take Five” was constructed around sustainable and organic husbandry principles.

In the same category a former lecturer in Lincoln University’s School of Architecture, Graham Densem, won a Merit award for his “Garden of Two Oceans” for the Christchurch-Gansu Friendly Relations Committee.  Also in the same category, and winning a Silver, was Lincoln University horticultural science and entomology graduate Dr Erik Ellis, public relations manager for Landscaping New Zealand, the national landscaping association. Erik’s Silver was for his entry “Reflecting All Things”.

In the National Flowerbed Competition 2008 BLA (Hons) graduate Matthew Tidball won a Silver for his entry “Visit Waimakariri” in which he recreated the essence his home district, from the mountains to the coast, using largely annuals.  He was assisted by 2005 BLA (Hons) graduate Lance Roozenburg.

In the Hort Galore category the Lincoln University Alumni Association’s entry, “Ivey Hall Rose” won a Merit award for Alumni Association Manager Sarah Currie, a Lincoln University Parks & Recreation Management masters graduate.