{"id":416448,"date":"2026-05-07T15:31:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/416448\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:31:17","slug":"the-lavender-breeder-putting-new-zealand-on-the-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/416448\/","title":{"rendered":"The lavender breeder putting New Zealand on the map"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;ve ever stopped and admired a lovely lavender garden &#8211; then you might have our next guest to thank.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wairau Valley&#8217;s Elsie Hall is a world-renowned lavender breeder, who&#8217;s patented plants are blooming in gardens around the globe.<\/p>\n<p>Her most famous lavender variety, named &#8216;Thumbelina Leigh&#8217;, sees around a million plants produced in Europe every year.<\/p>\n<p>Elsie&#8217;s just been awarded the 2026 Royal NZ Institute of Horticulture Plant Raisers\u2019 Award\u00a0at a recent ceremony in Dunedin. She joins Emile Donovan on the show tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4MUDGG5_copyright_image_229020.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"No caption\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nPhoto: RNZ\/Carol Stiles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you&#8217;ve ever stopped and admired a lovely lavender garden &#8211; then you might have our next guest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-416448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}