Gardens Visited

Sharing a beautiful gardening experience with you.

BUDA

Castlemaine

FOREST EDGE

Muckleford

MINILYA

Maldon

LIXOURI

Barkers Creek

A HILLSIDE GARDEN

AMARILLI

COUCALS of MOUNT CROSBY

Castelmaine & District Festival of Gardens

BUDA

FOREST EDGE in Muckleford

MINILYA in Maldon

LIXOURI of Barkers Creek

A HILLSIDE GARDEN

AMARILLI

Castelmaine * Foxglove Spires AUSTRALIA

Castlemaine is a small town in the centre of Victoria between Ballarat and Bendigo, steeped in history of gold mining and more recently quarrying slate. The temperature is typical of country temperatures, having wet winters with frosts and in summer very dry with the temperature soaring to over 40 degrees Celsius. In November 2010 we planned a trip to visit the festival of gardens and were thrilled with what we saw. Here are the highlights:

BUDA

You know a home is old when you see the huge trees before you enter the property and Buda is one of Castlemaine’s most well known and loved historic home and gardens. Having been in the Leviny family for over 100 years just walking through the home and gardens you get the homely feel of a much used and cared for garden of the past. From the quaint aviary at the back of the house to the huge conifer hedge at the front, that is so enormous it has formed a grotto beneath its gnarled branches to the flagstones paths. You can almost hear the 10 Leviny children playing and enjoying the many walks of the gently sloping block. Irises, valerian and roses form a major part of the cottage gardens including many old fashioned bush and rambling roses.

FOREST EDGE in Muckleford

I think that the word forest is very misleading as this enchanting garden is in the middle of rural pastures, surrounded by sheep and cattle. Before you enter the garden you can see that it is just burgeoning with plants of wonderful variety, form and colour. The garden has a distinct rural feel to it with the many post and rail fences which feature throughout the garden breaking the garden up into many ‘garden rooms’. These ‘rooms’ included, vegetable gardens, seating areas and even the ducks had their own area. However the garden does not feel broken up as the many cottage plants, including roses and irises are repeated throughout and billow over the edges onto the lawns, tying the whole garden together. There are also many rural buildings to add interest and humour. As well as flora, fauna in the form of ducks have their own ‘room’, complete with sunken bath and the garden was literally alive with fairy wrens, busily feeding themselves and their young.

MINILYA in Maldon

Even before you enter this property you know that the emphasis is on dry planting as Aeoniums and agaves stand tall on the street and as you enter, the house greets you looking majestic and proud, showing off a beautiful jasmine vine. Planting is not as dense as the previous two gardens which makes the garden relaxing but still colourful with huge blue Echium bushes and many white Shasta daisies giving a clean look. Emphasis on neatness continues with several structures including a Japanese tea house and an iron gazebo in a gravel courtyard next to the house.

LIXOURI of Barkers Creek

Surrounded by gum trees and bush, Lixouri is like an oasis in a desert, a Mediterranean oasis that is set off by the golden ochre mud brick house, the olive grove and the huge lake at the bottom. In between the house and lake is the wonderful garden. It is hard to separate the house from the garden as the back of the house is festooned in wisteria and roses from which the garden emanates down to the lake, highlighted by yellow irises all around the edge. The paths through the garden lead down to the lake are small and can hardly be seen, but the variety and immense plantings urge you to investigate every nook and cranny and this is obviously a much loved and tended garden. The rendered ochre theme is continued with a wonderful Spanish gate and studio linked with walls and the Mediterranean look is completed with a field of olive trees next to the lake. This garden is very obviously an artist’s garden as the lake, garden and house is bought together in a magical complete scene.

A HILLSIDE GARDEN

In addition to the official list of gardens there were gardens on the HEDGE (Horticultural Endeavours Demonstrating Gardening Enthusiasm) list. We spotted an open garden sign and ventured down a rough unmade road. Jim stopped the car before we got there and suggested I take a photo as there was a lovely big dam with a huge slope of gardens. Whilst I was taking the photo, Jim said ‘there is a woman down the bottom weeding’, and sure enough amongst the plants a bent figure was tearing out weeds. We pulled in the drive and I immediately followed a path full of self sown plants down to the dam and found the owner of the garden in an apron and gum boots with a wheelbarrow full of grass. She apologised for the weeds and thanked me for coming to visit her garden. When I commented that it must be a lot of work, she said “It is not a chore” and that they had had wonderful rain after 15 years of drought and she was so thankful that her garden was starting to flourish after loosing so many plants. The paths were soft and spongy and I was careful where I walked as there were almost as many plants in the paths as there were in the gardens. The roses were as rampant and effervescent as the other plantings of euphorbia, aquilegias and irises and I am sure that every plant was much loved.

AMARILLI

Was a small garden in a new estate on the edge of town. The feature was ceanothus, which was complimented by lavenders, dill and stachys. The garden was small but packed with interest and so full of plants that the house was in danger of being completely smothered. The owner was very generous in sharing her love of art and craft by allowing visitors into her house to view handmade goods.

Castlemaine certainly was the place to grow roses and made me feel that we were maybe attempting a vain cause. Two of the lady gardeners told me that they had considered moving to Queensland in their later years, but when they had been told that we couldn’t grow roses they had changed their minds as they couldn’t live without them. You could certainly see why!!

BUDA

Foxglove Spires

Tilba Tilba

N.S.W.

Foxglove Spires garden is in Tilba Tilba which is close to the coast in the southern hills of New South Wales, famous for their cheeses being close to Bega and Bodalla. They experience a dry winter with rain mainly in February and July, so the summers can get quite humid.

I visited the garden in early November 2010 and was immediately won over by the woodland feel of the garden which had been closely planted with large English oak trees to compliment the huge Norfolk pines already present when the owner started the garden 20 or more years ago.

The whole garden was built on the side of a gently sloping hill with a dam at the bottom and according to the owner’s Mother, the soil was a good retentive clay which allowed the excess moisture to filter down the hill into the dam. The paths were wide and naturally meandered throughout the garden. I started at the bottom where there was a lot of shade but in the areas that light did come in there were foxgloves. Other plantings included hydrangeas, arum lilies, irises, acanthus and tree ferns, all moisture loving plants. Next to the dam was a gothic ruin, urns and it was these interesting areas that made you want to explore the garden further. There were many tunnel arbours festooned with roses that lead you into other magical areas.

As you then climbed higher, up the gravel paths, the whole garden opened out into glorious sunshine with views of mountains and roses in a profusion of colours. They were scrambling over metal arches and wooden trellises and jostled with cottagey plants including lilliums, irises, echiums, lavender, more foxgloves bound with neatly clipped grass paths.

As I wound my way back down the slope towards the house, I discovered a fabulous vegetable garden with a chicken yard completely enclosed next to it. These two structures formed part of the garden as they were also surrounded by colourful nasturtiums, pelargoniums and roses. The wildlife obviously enjoyed the garden as well as in the background pigeons cooed, magpies warbled and frogs sang throughout my whole journey through the garden.

The house looked as if it was another structure, part of the garden and the drive to the house was a tunnel of wisteria probably 30 – 40 metres long.

The journey through the garden left me with a feeling of relaxation and contented wonder of how beautiful nature is particularly when a human has had hand in orchestrating it.