Stick Farm

Tasman Bay Roses, Motueka. Whereas other nurseries try to diversify and sell garden furnitures, ornaments, books or croqs, or start a café, the good people of TBR doggestly stuck to roses, mainly as a wholesaler. (Except some summers when they do carry a few bits of other plants that go well with roses.)

In the summer you can spend hours walking though their stunning gardens and look at and smell the roses before selection, but as Mr TBR Senior told us years ago, if you want to plant them, come in the winter when they have all the varieties, and the transition is easier on the plants. In fact, above is the current shop front, and there are rows and rows of fields behind where, if you want something that's not in the shop front, they whop on the quad bike and go dig up whatever you ask.

Heaven on earth. Yesterday's loot: freshly dug-up bush Cecil Brunner, Margaret Merrill, and Dublin Bay. Plus a free, white suited-for-cut-flower bush. During the winter, if you buy three, you get a present. Yay!