A SECRET GARDEN
Longford Blooms is on this weekend and I was lucky enough to have a sneak preview of one of the out of town gardens. Kerin-Lea Hall’s working cottage garden at Cressy is one of the 10 gardens open over this weekend in the Longford area in northern Tasmania.
The garden is an ordinary suburban size (less than the old quarter acre block, says Kerin-Lea), but so packed with plants it took me several hours to walk through.
As it is hidden behind a large hedge, stepping into it is almost overwhelming. There are so many plants in a very small space and each one is fascinating, so it was hard to know where to look.
In a single glance I discovered a new hollyhock with heart-shaped rustproof leaves, was amazed by a mass of black-flowered cornflowers (yes, black) and coveting a collection of boldly coloured dwarf nasturtiums. One, called “Bloody Mary”, has blood red flowers veined with yellow. That was before I saw the climbing monkshood.
Beside the driveway are a series of raised beds filled with sweet peas that are trained up simple climbing frames. There are also sweet peas tucked in next to any vertical surface throughout the rest of garden.
Sweet peas are a particular passion for Kerin-Lea, who has sourced them from all over the world, to grow to harvest seed to sell through her seed business Australia’s Sweet Pea Specialists (on Facebook, or see sweetpeaspecialistsaustralia.com) where she offers many heirloom varieties, including the South Australian-bred Gawler Hybrids and the old favourite “Painted Lady”.
She also grows other plants and herbs for their edible flowers for local restaurants and for seed, and uses the flowers in her garden to inspire her thriving graphic art business. I don’t know when she sleeps as she also has a busy garden maintenance business and there’s not a weed, pest or disease in sight in her garden.
Inspiring ideas
Despite the overwhelming number of plants, Kerin-Lea says she doesn’t do complicated. She does, however, have lots of great garden ideas, all simple and easy to do and mostly using recycled materials sourced from the tip shop like the very clever support system for herbaceous peonies made from reinforcing wire.
The wire is bent low over the plants, which grow up through the squares so their stems are supported but their leaves hide the wire.
On a shady side path there is a productive mushroom farm in an old bathtub.
“It’s just a bag of mushroom compost and we harvest kilos,” says Kerin-Lea. Nearby in a tub of water is a potted cranberry. Also growing on the water is the waterweed ferny azolla.
This is scooped out and used as slowrelease fertiliser around fruit trees, including the very productive dwarf seedless mandarin, also growing in a pot.
The back garden is divided between more flowers and vegetables and is home to several bouncing dogs, some well-housed hens, and a topiarised sheep called Cassie. Here are more clever examples of recycling and repurposing with recycled mattress springs used as climbing frames in the vegetable garden, and more unusual plants, including some very tasty celery herb.
“Why grow celery when you can grow celery herb much more easily?” she asks, breaking off a piece to taste as we hurry by to look at something further on.
Longford Blooms
If you love flowers and vegetables and want to discover some really neat ideas, don’t miss Longford Blooms and a visit to Kerin-Lea Hall and nine other gardens this weekend (November 16 and 17).
To get started, buy entry tickets ($10 or $5 concession for a day ticket) outside The Helping Hand at 2 Malborough St, Longford, where you’ll also be supplied with a map and the addresses of the 10 participating gardens.