COMING UP ROSES
CARVING OUT A LIFE (AND A GARDEN) IN MOGLONEMBY, IN COUNTRY VICTORIA, WAS TOUGH FOR HILARY SELLARS. BUT HER PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE AND PASSION HAVE PAID OFF.
Country Style reader Hilary Sellars talks about the challenges of creating a garden in the bush.
GROWING UP IN MELBOURNE, I dreamt about living in the country. I was horse mad and, after finishing university, I looked for jobs outside the city, securing a position at the hospital in Shepparton. I found a dilapidated old house on a farm to live in. There was a regular visitor to this house who I thought was pretty nice – my husband-to-be, Rob.
Rob’s family had a farm just out of Euroa at a place called Moglonemby, and this is where we bought our own parcel of land in 1988. It had a tiny fibrocement cottage with a flat roof, sitting in a chicken-wire enclosure that had been cemented in. There was no power and only 1000 gallons of water. We had a little gas fridge and a generator, but the milk went off every second day. In summer, the place was like an inferno, requiring some creative ways of keeping cool!
We set about building a house using whatever materials we could salvage from the cottage. I desperately wanted to create a garden and, although I had grown up with a beautiful garden in Melbourne, I hadn’t taken much notice of gardening fundamentals. With limited water, increasing summer temperatures, annual infestations of grasshoppers, roving sheep and poor soils, it was a daunting task.
But, year after year, we persevered. I read lots of books, visited plenty of gardens and persuaded Rob to move the garden fence. Little by little, things started to change.
While trying to create an oasis around the house, we were also experimenting with ways to farm alongside, rather than against, nature and provide habitat for birds and marsupials. Rainfall was steadily decreasing, the soils were poor and weeds abundant. But with the help of our local catchment management authority, we’ve planted thousands of trees along the creeks and boundaries, and have placed a covenant on the main creek so it’s protected for future generations. We try to minimise the use of chemicals and artificial fertilisers, too. It’s all still a work in progress.
For children growing up on a farm, there is an innate sense of freedom and the ability to take risks, but there is also responsibility and the need to be able to get yourself out of sticky situations. We’ve had many incidents that could’ve had a less favourable outcome … but both our sons escaped unscathed (although they may beg to differ!).
For our sons, the farm provided the inspiration for their beer brand, Mog Brew. This is still a (very fun!) work in progress, too …
For more information on Mog Brew, visit mogbrew.com.au