The Surrealist Garden is the newest of the Hamilton Garden's fantasy collection. First published in February, 2020.

It's like stumbling into an Alice-in-Wonderland inspired hallucination.

From giant gardening tools to disembodied noses "growing" in the garden, everything in the Surrealist Garden is the puzzling and difficult to explain.

It's the newest addition to Hamilton Gardens' fantasy collection and it's set to open at 3.30pm on Monday.

KELLY HODEL/STUFF Hamilton Garden's newest addition is inspired by Surrealism, an artistic movement which thrived throughout the 1920s and 30s.

The garden is inspired by Surrealism, an artistic movement which thrived throughout the 1920s and 30s. It explores the mystery behind dreams and the subconscious mind, largely inspired by Sigmund Freud.

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And its art was often distorted, unsettling and removed from reality - like dreams.

KELLY HODEL/STUFF The garden is designed to make you feel like you've walked into "a different world".

While surrealism thrived in the 20th century, surrealism elements to gardens isn't new, said Hamilton Gardens director Dr Peter Sergel, who designs the gardens.

"There have been surrealist elements in gardens for thousands of year, particularly in Chinese gardens.

"We were trying to represent a lot of those features in this one garden. So distortion of scale, biomorphic shapes, things doing strange things like the lawn curling up at the corners. Any relevant sort of detail, strange detail."

KELLY HODEL/STUFF Gardener Alice Gwilliam says a lot of time and work has gone into the Surrealism Garden.

The peculiar garden begins with a passage and a black-and-white patterned floor and sepia-tinged paintings hanging from from the walls. The mantelpiece above a fireplace is empty apart from a pair of small egg shaped ornaments.

The passage disappears into the forest of looming ivy-covered "trons", with finger-like tendrils that move, thanks to carefully designed hydrolics.

Those shapes were inspired by pre-cambrian life forms and the paintings of David Inshaw, but they've evolved, Sergel said.

KELLY HODEL/STUFF Hamilton Garden's newest garden is inspired by the surrealist movement.

It's designed to make you feel like you've walked into "a different world".

"You do feel a bit like that, as if you've suddenly shrunk."

It doesn't end when you reach the lawn, either.

KELLY HODEL/STUFF Walking into the garden should feel like you've entered "a different world", Hamilton Gardens Director Dr Peter Sergel.

At the end of the lawn is a giant white door, which some staff say may be destined to become the next "selfie" spot.

A decorative spade, wheelbarrow and tap - the latter of which was bought through Waikato University crowd funding - are about five times their usual sizes.

The lawn is bordered by thick, tropical foliage, with a dozen white noses - not roses - dotted throughout the leafy greens.

KELLY HODEL/STUFF From giant gardening tools to the lawn curling up at the edges, everything in the Surrealist Garden is strange or unexpected.

The garden has been a long time in the making, says lead hand and gardener Alice Gwilliam, who remembers when the garden was little more than a paddock.

"We used to call it the greenie lawn and it was just to get to one place or the other."

Photos show the patch of land being transformed into Sergel's vision, from a sketch.

KELLY HODEL/STUFF A wheelbarrow is one of the items about five times its usual size.

Gwilliam and Shaun Allen have been strategically planting and tending to the abundance of plants for about five years.

But the hedge alone was planted about 15 years ago.

It was hard to imagine what the end result would look like, but Gwilliam likens it to a "giant's garden".

KELLY HODEL/STUFF University of Waikato students crowd funded for money for the giant tap.

Getting the ivy, hedera helix and hedera canariensis, to grow up to the tips of the moving tendrils had been "trial and error", but they're not far off.

The ivy is fed seaweed or blood and bone fertiliser once a month, to keep the weed-like plant plentiful and lush.

"The ivy won't disappoint, it will take over."

HAMILTON GARDENS Sketches reveal the vision behind the newest garden.

And the leafy gardens, which no-one can see beyond, creates a "mysterious" feel, Gwilliam said.

Gardens never turn out exactly the way you think they will, but this one is "more or less" how Sergel imagined it.

But his favourite garden will be "always the next one".

HAMILTON GARDENS The Surrealist Garden, the newest of the fantasy gardens, has been years in the making.

The Surrealism Garden will open to the public on Monday, February 3 at 3.30pm.