Garden lovers will be spoiled for choice as 95 top Taranaki gardens in two rival festivals open their gates for viewing from Friday.
As well as one of the longest-running garden festivals in the country, there is also the Fringe Garden Festival, which claims to have surpassed the original in size.
The Powerco Taranaki Garden Spectacular has been running for 26 years while the fringe festival was set up almost a decade ago for gardens that had not been accepted into the main event.
Fringe Garden Festival organiser John Lucas says it now features more gardens than the main festival.
He says it is not intending to compete with the original festival though, and he has had an amicable meeting with its organisers.