I am back home again after spending two months in New Zealand visiting relatives and playing tourist. It was the end of their summer so many gardens there were not showing their best for photos. One thing that I did love looking at was all the garden arches used there in home gardens. They can be seen though out the country. They are often simple home made structures, using 4"x4" and 4"x2" lumber, but really add to the character of the garden. Others can be more expensive bought arches. As I traveled around, I started to take pictures of them and I have put up several of them on the blog for you to have a look at and maybe be inspired by. All of these pictures show the archway as part of the garden entrance way but they could also be freestanding.
A few years ago, after another trip to New Zealand, I decided that I wanted a Kiwi style garden arch in my garden here in Hawaii. Living in the tropics, building wooden structures in the garden is just asking for a termite invasion. I looked at the new recycled plastic pretend lumber and the new white vinyl fence material to see if that would work but it just did not look like the New Zealand wood arches. Instead I decided to go with the more expensive redwood lumber which is a bit more bug and weather proof. The wooden corner poles were not buried in the soil but attached to metal bases that were cemented into the soil to further keep termites away. So far so good. Here is a picture of my garden arch in the front garden. I have a type of passion fruit growing on it....the sweet, orange leather skinned type that grows wild up in our mountains. It never seems to want to climb to the top of the arch. I think it knows there is too much salt wind up there. Lower down it is protected from the wind by the surrounding bushes.
Aloha
