Friends Like These
This lush soul-soothing garden in country Victoria is made for meandering.
The cottage at The Garden House is surrounded by riotous layers of green, a monochromatic palette favoured by owner Theresa Albioli for its calming effect. The Lavender Garden, pictured here, features masses of French lavender, along with euphorbia, agapanthus, pencil pines, Japanese maple and silver birch.
Theresa Albioli has spent 10 years shaping this garden in Daylesford, central Victoria. When she wanders through it – inspecting a leaf here, observing a patch that needs pruning there – she feels like she is visiting a good friend. “The garden has a life of its own,” says Theresa. “It’s a garden with lovely memories and it’s a living, breathing, beautiful thing. It’s almost like a person to me.”
The “beautiful thing” in question is the 2000-square-metre wonder land that surrounds The Garden House, formerly Theresa’ s private home and now a luxury-accommodation property. Hidden behind a tall, thick cypress hedge that spans the entire street frontage of the property, the garden is completely contained and private. From the outside, there is no indication of its scale or head-high layers of green. Walk through the front gate, however, and the garden reveals itself as an inviting series of lush green ‘rooms’ and meandering paths.
Former Melburnian Theresa bought The Garden House with her then-husband in 2010. They and their two children, Julian and Taylor, lived here as a family until various life changes prompted a return to Melbourne and the conversion of The Garden House into holiday accommodation. But the lure of Daylesford proved too powerful for Theresa, and she moved back to the town permanently in 2015. She and her new partner, Tony De Marco, have since purchased several more properties in the town, also used as luxury holiday rentals. But it is The Garden House, Theresa’s first Daylesford home, with its weatherboard cottage encircled by garden, that occupies a special place in her heart.
The house at the epicentre of the garden is deceptively young. It was built only 20 years ago, but clever detailing and the use of recycled windows by its original owners has imbued it with period character. While it’s the same age as the house, the garden, too, feels well-established and has an ‘old soul’ feel about it, thanks in part to the velvety rich volcanic soil in which it thrives.
When Theresa bought the property, the garden already had the key structural elements. “The bones and the edges were there, and over the years we have filled it in,” says Theresa. She and Tony wanted the garden to be lush and full yet low maintenance,
so they focused on installing hardy species, including 500 English box ( Buxus sempervirens) and 40 quick-growing pencil pines ( Cupressus sempervirens ‘Glauca’). They revived and added to existing massed plantings of agapanthus and French lavender ( Lavandula dentata) to ensure the formation of thick, luscious bands. “We were told the existing lavender was too old and needed removal, but we just started hedging the plants and they come back brilliantly,” says Theresa.
The garden is divided into distinct but connected rooms, including the ‘formal garden’ of parterre English box, the Lavender Garden, a birch walk and a well-stocked kitchen garden/ orchard at the rear of the home. Each zone is connected by gravel pathways and Theresa has placed urns and seats to create focal pointsthroughout.It’sagardenforexplorationandcontemplation. In one corner, Theresa and Tony planted three weeping cherry trees, their draping canopies forming a special garden feature. “It’s like a little cubbyhouse or cave under the leaves,” says Theresa. “It’s so beautiful that I placed a seat under there to encourage people to venture in and sit down.”
The nearby avenue of silver birches is one of Theresa’s favourite areas, transformed after a judicious prune. “A few years ago, the trees were looking sad and tired so Tony and I turned them into standards – cutting all the bottom branches off them – and that just changed the effect immediately,” says Theresa. “Previously, they’d been competing with each other and you couldn’t walk through the trees. Now, they look happy and it’s beautiful walking between them.” At one end of the birch avenue a bluestone seat offers another point for contemplation.
This picturesque birch walk holds special memories for Theresa: her late father loved to wander the grounds of The Garden House and particularly loved the shimmering foliage of the birches. She also buried a beloved family dog under the trees. “There are some sad memories associated with the garden, but that’s probably why I love it so much,” she says.
Throughout the process of adding and editing plants, Theresa has been keen to ensure the garden has a mostly green-on-green palette. The only variations to this are the soft drifts of purple and sprinklings of white. “I love a monotone palette in my gardens,” she says. “I find it very calming. None of the plants compete with each other. They all look like they’re all friends having a wonderful time together.”
Accommodation at The Garden House is available through The Houses Daylesford, www.thehousesdaylesford.com.
The garden is composed of layers of green with subtle washes of mauve and white. The silver birch trees, pictured right, were reinvigorated when Therese and Tony cut their bottom branches, creating a picturesque allée. The 20-year-old French lavender underneath, which appears throughout the property, was rejuvenated after heavy pruning.
“We turned the trees into standards. Now, they look happy and it’s beautiful walking between them.” Theresa Albioli