Four Seasons of the South
A year-round celebration
Ōtepoti Dunedin's garden festival, reborn. Twenty-plus gardens and a year-round celebration rooted in the southern soil.
Our Ambassador
"I'm thrilled to be the Ambassador for the Ōtepoti Garden Festival."
"Ōtepoti Dunedin is a magnet for visitors, an iconic garden destination, a botanic centre of excellence, with three NZGT Gardens of International Significance."
Sophie Barker
Mayor of Ōtepoti Dunedin & Festival Ambassador
The Festival
Ōtepoti Dunedin is one of the last regions in New Zealand without an official garden festival. The former Dunedin Rhododendron Festival proved the appetite, nearly 7,000 people and 25-plus open gardens, and that appetite never went away. Garden Ōtepoti Dunedin picks up that heritage and grows it across the whole turning year. From the rhododendron dells and the country's oldest botanic garden to backyard plots and community māra, this is a festival built on a simple truth: the South grows something extraordinary.
Dunedin Botanic Garden
The signature
Most festivals get one weekend a year. Ōtepoti gets four distinct experiences rolling out from spring 2026 onward.
Bloom · Celebration of Gardens
Bloom Hub from 1 October · festival 17–26 October
Ten days of open gardens, a Bloom Garden Party, Rhododendron Day, Walks & Talks and a Labour Day family picnic.
Explore Spring
Harvest · Food Resilience
March – May 2027
The season of the table, and of food resilience. Harvest feasts, kai provenance, and the growers building a more self-reliant South.
Explore Autumn
Wintergarden · Renewal & Transformation
June – August 2028
Gardens after dark. Light, fire and stillness as the city marks Matariki and the southern sky returns to centre stage.
Explore Winter
Earth Rhythms · Conservation & Wellness
January – February 2029
Long days, slow living. Conservation, wellbeing and the rhythms of the land at the height of the southern summer.
Explore SummerA garden city
From heritage rhododendrons to spring drifts and high-summer borders, a glimpse of what Ōtepoti grows.
Open Gardens
Dunedin Open Gardens is a self-booked garden tour of private and public gardens across the city, the Taieri and the peninsula. You buy in and book your own route over the calendar dates, by region, by budget, on foot or by bike. Every garden is graded by our team of curators, respected local gardeners.
Our team of curators: Dunedin Botanic Garden's Dylan Norfield, Wylde Willow's Fran Rawling, Hereweka Gardens' Peter Cooke & Anna Moore, the Otago Peninsula's Barbara & Gerry Wilkins, and Taste Nature's Clinton Chambers & Rodney McDonald.
The Curators
A panel of respected local gardeners visit and grade our open gardens. They give their time; in return we send visitors to their own gardens and businesses.
Taste Nature Organic Gardens
Clinton Chambers and Rodney McDonald turned scrub and gorse in Waitati into a certified organic garden growing produce for Taste Nature's café.
See the garden →
Doctor's Point Garden
Dylan Norfield has spent 18 years building this Waitati woodland from degraded land, now home to over 1300 rare plants and native birdlife.
See the garden →
Hereweka Garden
Peter Cooke and Anna Moore have shaped this Otago Peninsula garden since 1983, pairing rare trees and rhododendrons with native forest conservation.
See the garden →
Wylde Willow Garden
Fran Rawling QSM, with Mike, has grown this Abbotsford garden over three decades into a tranquil parkland of roses, rhododendrons and perennials.
See the garden →
Stoneleigh Creek Garden
Barbara and Gerry Wilkins have shaped this sheltered Otago Peninsula valley over three decades, with birch-lined drives, a stream-side woodland and harbour views.
See the garden →
Clinton Chambers, Founder, GO Ōtepoti Garden Festival
Our Story
The Taste Nature Charitable Trust was created to deliver our community outreach programs. Our goal is to extend the values and objectives of Taste Nature to our communities and to ensure the benefits of Good Food and Health is accessible to all.
We aim to:
Our Social Responsibility holds us to a set of legal, ethical, social and ecological standards. It is a form of business self-regulation to support greater public awareness of ethical and environmental issues. Under our Five Foundational Principles (People, Planet, Profit, Integrity, Leadership) we strive for social change in the areas of education, health and Conscious Consumerism.
Friends of Ōtepoti
As GO Ōtepoti grows into a year-round festival, Friends will get unlimited entry, members' pricing and the warm feeling of funding the kaupapa. Membership opens as we scale — register your interest and you'll be first in. Launching as the festival grows
Annual · price TBC
Annual · price TBC
Annual · price TBC
Garden Shop
Heirloom and heritage varieties, chosen and grown for the southern climate. Buy a packet, fund the kaupapa, keep rare plants in circulation. Range & pricing in development
A southern-adapted mix of cottage-garden classics.
Vegetables that thrive in the cooler South, saved season to season.
Membership, seeds and small joys for the grower in your life.
What's On
A year-round programme of hands-in-the-soil learning. See the full diary →
Plant choices that love a Dunedin winter.
Keep heritage varieties alive in your own backyard.
A guided wander at peak bloom.
Our Supporters
GO Ōtepoti is made possible by partners who believe in a greener, more connected city. The Dunedin City Council is confirmed as a founding supporter. More partners joining
Stay in the loop
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