Cool change
The heavens opened as Wychwood’s new owners arrived at the garden gate, but that was just the start of the adventure
Iconic Tasmanian garden Wychwood is thriving under the skilful care of a young couple from Melbourne
Five years ago, with floodwaters lapping the bottom of the garden, David Doukidis and Matt Bendall arrived at their new home, Wychwood, in northern Tasmania. David and Matt had bought Wychwood, a garden regularly open to the public, from long-time owners Peter Cooper and Karen Hall, who had created the garden from a windswept paddock over two decades.
“It was cold, dark and very wet when we arrived at the little town of Mole Creek,” Matt recalls. The area had been flooded, so rather than being able to slide gently into their new life in the country from a garden in inner-city Melbourne, they had to come to terms with a major disaster.
Although the flood hadn’t reached the house, it swept away the garden’s turf labyrinth and fencing, along with several sculptures and garden seats (some were later recovered downstream). It had also remodelled the course of Mole Creek that winds through the bottom of the garden.
“We saw firsthand what the expression ‘log jam’ meant,” jokes Matt, recalling the aftermath of the flood. Instead of getting stuck into revamping the garden beds and starting work on plant propagation as they had planned, David and Matt immediately set to clearing debris and repairing flood damage. “We moved literally hundreds of wheelbarrow loads of debris, and it felt like we had a bonfire burning 24/7,” Matt remembers, “but we learnt a lot from the floods and we now know so much about respecting the vagaries of nature when you’re living in the country.
“We were both city folk, so we had to learn to do things that country folk know about, such as fencing and dealing with logs,” he adds. “Our neighbours and local gardeners were wonderful, and they all really helped us to find our way.”
Despite the ‘baptism by flood’, they say their first winter wasn’t all bad. It allowed them to totally fall in love with their new
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A clipped box ball surrounded by meandering Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ under an oak tree; Serbian spruces (Picea omorika) stand across from a perennial bed, which includes purple meadow rue (Thalictrum aquilegiifolium), red hot pokers, cornflowers and red Nepalese poppy (Meconopsis napaulensis); a spiral of broadleaf privet outside The Retreat.
home, especially as the garden received several falls of snow, which turned its bare winter bones and clipped evergreen hedges into a winter wonderland.
Matt says waking up to fields sparkling with frost and seeing white snow glittering on the Western Tiers has been inspiring, and admits that the hard physical work is keeping them both fit. Even now, after experiencing six very cold Mole Creek winters – with temperatures often well into minus territory – they remain struck by the sheer beauty of their new home and its cold-climate location.
renewal & rejuvenation
Even without a flood to clean up, there’s plenty of pruning and planting to be done each winter to keep the garden looking good. This year, pruning included major tree maintenance and removal, as well as formative pruning of new trees.
“The work done this winter has set up the new trees for their first 20 years, and we’ve given our mature trees a prune to set them up for the future,” Matt explains. “Of course, now we’re left with a huge mess, but it’s wonderful to live in a climate where you can make a mess while little in the garden is growing.”
Wychwood garden covers an area of just over 1ha and features many beautiful cool-climate trees, as well as shrubs, rare perennials and bulbs. There is also a collection of heritage apples. The garden is surrounded by hedges and trees that protect it from the cold winds that blow in from the south and west, funnelled by the enclosing mountains.
Matt says that the large garden can be divided into three distinct areas: the woodland, the main garden and the arboretum. The woodland, which welcomes visitors to the garden, was originally a full-sun area that’s matured into a shady planting of birch, beech and maple trees.
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David Doukidis and Matt Bendall in the woodland garden; a grove of canoe birch (Betula papyrifera); steel sculpture featuring wrens by Tasmanian sculptor Folko Kooper; clipped box balls under birch trees; a robust clump of Gunnera manicata in front of lacy Anthriscus ‘Ravenswing’ and the gold leaves of a Sambucus nigra ‘Aurea’ shrub.
It is this area that has seen a lot of clearing and replanting with bulbs, perennials and fabulous foliage plants that love the shade, including Podophyllum spp., Syneilesis spp., Paris spp. and Jeffersonia spp.
The central main garden is the sunniest area and this, too, is being replanted with new, attractive rare plants, filling empty beds and bringing variety and interest.
“As we bought the garden when it was already mature, and the property had not been lived in for more than two and a half years, plants had died or come to the end of their life span, so we have been able to introduce new plants and pursue our plant passions while still honouring the garden’s history,” Matt explains.
Tall foxtail lilies (Eremurus spp.) that go into summer dormancy after their spectacular spring flowering, have been planted at the back of some beds, along with a range of ornamental grasses for contrast.
“I have also fallen in love with species liliums,” adds Matt. “I’ve grown about three dozen from seed, including the beautiful Lilium martagon var. album in our woodland, and L. monadelphum, L. canadense and L. rubellum, which are planted in the main garden.” He explains that species lilies are hard to find and are not widely grown in gardens but, once established, they are very long lived.
Renewal is also occurring in the arboretum, a grassy area of the garden that stretches down to Mole Creek and includes many mature species of maple (Acer spp.). The removal of trees that have died or been damaged has opened up new planting opportunities (a freak wind storm was another natural disaster that hit Wychwood and wreaked havoc after David and Matt moved in).
“We have just planted a golden dawn redwood (Metasequoia ‘Gold Rush’), which is an unusual deciduous conifer with golden leaves that will bring real interest to the arboretum,” says Matt.
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Matt in Wychwood’s nursery; the small outbuilding known as The Retreat has an espaliered crabapple (Malus ‘Jack Humm’) growing up a wall and, nearby, Anthriscus ‘Ravenswing’ grows in dappled shade cast by a large weeping birch (Betula pendula); David tending the kitchen garden.
the garden’s nursery
While Matt and David open Wychwood garden to visitors from mid-spring to the end of autumn, they have also established a specialist nursery, offering direct and mail-order sales for gardeners.
They now have an estimated 1500 species and plant varieties in the garden and in propagation, and many of these are rare. “Rare doesn’t necessarily mean hard to grow,” Matt points out.
The nursery side of the business has been booming since the pandemic struck, which Matt and David feel is a reflection of people’s renewed interest in gardens and, particularly, in discovering unusual plants.
“One bright light this past summer and autumn was the number of Tasmanian visitors in the garden,” says Matt. “They are very keen to see how the garden is developing and to talk to us about what we are growing and looking at how the plant they are buying grows in the garden.”
The nursery specialises in cool-climate perennials but includes biennials, climbers, shrubs and trees. Plants in the online store are even searchable by light requirements.
“I feel that shade is underappreciated by gardeners in Australia, who plant roses, crabapples and other sun-loving plants in areas unsuited to them,” he says. “I would like more people to embrace the variety of shade-loving plants available, especially among bulbs and foliage plants.”
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A sea of yellow-flowered Phlomis russeliana with dark-foliaged Lysimachia ‘Firecracker’ and a clipped box ball (Buxus sempervirens) near the propagation shed; looking across a lush paddock with an old timber building to Mount Roland and Mount Claude; Lilium pomponium; Aquilegia ‘Louisiana’.