Garden makeover
SILKE Heinsen’s dream sea-change property at Portarlington needed some work. You can visit it this weekend and see the results.
A LITTLE more than a year ago Silke Heinsen found her dream sea-change property. At more than 150 years old, the Portarlington home has serious garden history.
But it had been allowed to run down and, when Silke moved in, the major feature was the heavy weed growth.
‘‘In the early stages it could take me a day just to weed 1m of garden,’’ she said.
And as she weeded and tore through the jungle in her garden she found ‘‘a lot of nice surprises hidden underneath’’, which she would repurpose.
A piece of iron bedstead she uncovered is now in the vegie garden for beans to grow up and over. An old fern, all furry tendrils in its pot and forgotten in a corner somewhere, is now sitting in an old bird bath and is a pleasing feature rather than a lost treasure.
When Silke discovered an old water tank with no top or bottom — much like a raised garden bed — she flipped it on its side, and tidied up a couple of found fence posts and created a seat in the tank. It sits in one corner, all shady and zen-like with a couple of wind chimes nearby.
Pathways and built-up garden beds had all been lost, hidden in undergrowth and are now uncovered with new plants added.
In among the weeds were 25 fruit trees, all prolific bearers now they’ve been pruned hard, fed well and cleared of the choking weeds. There’s pear, apple, fig, peach, lemon trees of all sorts, including a delightful eating lemonade, and more besides.
‘‘We’ve had some astounding feasts here from all these old fruit trees,’’ Silke said.
‘‘The soil is hydrophobic. It doesn’t like to take up any water and I am working to improve that, but even so it is the sweetest smelling earth I have ever smelt. It’s really beautiful.’’
Her chooks — and a happier bunch of girls you’d be hard-pressed to find — keep the weeds down now, add fertiliser and keep the soil turned.
They were also eating all her strawberries until she added a couple of metal hoops and some chicken wire to keep some for herself.
‘‘My plan for this place is to make it selfsufficient for a B&B,’’ she said. ‘‘Grow all my fruit and vegies, recycle everything, provide the eggs.’’
The first major project Silke undertook, and one she had never tackled before, was a fish pond. She laughs to think of the task she took on; her inexperience hiding just what a daunting task it was.
‘‘I had a few stress attacks doing this and I have been puzzled by its success,’’ she said.
The result is spectacularly attractive. It looks like it’s been there since time immemorial with algae, goldfish, aquatic plants, rocks and pebbles and plantings around the edge.
Situated by the doorway, it creates a cooling effect in the house as breezes pass over the water.
But the truly lovely thing about having a garden that is more than 150 years old is that Silke has trees that would be the envy of many a gardener. In particular, there is a peppercorn with its spreading canopy and gnarly trunk forming the centrepiece of the garden and a testament to the heritage of the property.