​In 1864, the people of Timaru asked the Canterbury Provincial Government to reserve unsold land from Government Town, the settlement that formed the basis of the southern part of Timaru.

Of that land, some was put aside by surveyor Samuel Hewlings for botanic gardens, and three years later it was placed in the care of the Borough of Timaru Park Commissioners, with planting beginning the following year.

Much of this planting was carried out by convicts from the old Timaru Gaol.

Many of the plants were donated by Timaruvians, invited by advertisements in The Timaru Herald. Fetes were organised to raise money for further development.

In 1872, £200 was allocated for a ranger’s cottage. The first glasshouse was built in 1905, and the splendid Arts and Crafts style Band Rotunda was added in 1912 to commemorate the Coronation of George V.

The great Scottish poet Robert Burns was hugely popular in Aotearoa from the colonial period into the 20th century, and in 1913 a somewhat lumpen marble statue of him was donated by the former mayor James Craigie (after whom Craigie Ave is named) and installed in the Gardens.

The tennis courts and bowling green were established by 1916, but the biggest change came in 1938 when land was subdivided for Timaru Hospital.

The Gardens have never stopped evolving. The Shakespeare Trail and Grahame Paterson Conservatory came in 1988, and in 2014 Timaru Botanic Gardens were made a Garden of National Significance by the New Zealand Gardens Trust.

Andrew Paul Wood