I have built a few garden rock walls in my time. Not many of them are still intact though, thanks to small boys who liked walking on them and

little Jack Russell terriers who loved nothing more than dislodging key stones in the pursuit of the lizards who lived in them. I’m sure they would not be crumbling today if I had done a course with Josh Bowes. This sculptor and stonemason from Daylesford in Central Victoria has mastered the art of dry-stone walling as you can see on page 16. A Country Style garden issue just wouldn’t be the same without the photography of Claire Takacs. I always look forward to her glorious images and I’m never disappointed — you won’t be either when you turn to page 62 to see the gardens she has included in her first book, Dreamscapes. Another landscape in this issue that will take your breath away is in direct contrast to the gardens captured by Claire’s camera. Umbearra Station, Angus and Kimberley Mckay’s cattle property south of Alice Springs, is 3600-square kilometres of open plains with gum watercourses, mulga and granite hills. When Country Style visited, there were drifts of wildflowers amid the native pasture. “I didn’t really expect to still be here 10 years on, but once I lived here for a while, I found it was too beautiful to leave,” says Kimberley, who moved to Umbearra when she was just 19. The isolation took some getting used to, but Kimberley had supportive neighbours and today says she’s lucky to run a business and raise a family in central Australia. Susan and Matthew Playsted also believe they are fortunate to be able to give their four boys the experience of growing up on a farm. Although she dreamed of a property with an old Queenslander, Susan ended up with a “very ugly duckling” near Chinchilla, on Queensland’s Western Downs, but has transformed it into the beautiful home on page 34. “You don’t buy a farm for a house and, in the end, we made this house our own,” says Susan. “This has been the best thing for our boys. We’ve hit the jackpot really.” Enjoy the issue Victoria Carey