Human Flower Project

Christchurch’s Motley Festival

Christchurch, New Zealand, needs more than a week for its ingenious Festival of Flowers and Romance: smell it, see it, ride it, wear it.

The Garden City of Australasia —Christchurch, New Zealand—may spoil you for ordinary flower shows, the kind with a couple of rose and chrysanthemum competitions, a parade and garden tour.

The New Zealanders have other ideas and loads of them, enough to fill nine whole days. This year’s Festival of Flowers and Romance, February 11-20, is the most ambitiously unconventional community flower show I’ve heard of yet.

Getting in the spirit

Festival of Flowers and Romance

Christchurch, New Zealand, 2003

All photos: Festival of Flowers and Romance

Yes, there are garden tours. Yes, there are parades, three daily, and one more on the evening of the 17th. Floral attire required, and by that we don’t mean rose-print fabric or a necktie with daisies. All the paraders are flowers, in sepal-collars and narrow long-stemmed skirts.

Wearable Flowers Parade, 2003

The centerpiece of the event is a “floral carpet” along the main aisle of Christchurch Cathedral, a magnificent indoor garden with the church’s rose window hanging like a red jeweled sun above it.

Floral Carpet, Christchurch Cathedral

During festival week, as floral trams roll through the city, Christchurch holds a photography contest and “garden makeover” competition. In the botanical garden, fairies tell children stories. This year a Scented Garden for the Blind has been planted at Cathedral Square, to be “uplifted” to Abberley Park after the festival ends.

There’s more. Check the festival schedule even if you can’t attend, and gather some idea of the difference between a flower show and a human flower project.

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