COUNTRY CHARM:

a flourishing rural garden, plus Get the Look

RUSTIC GIFT

When John and Julie Mitchell bought the property eight years ago, the cottage needed some love and attention, while the backyard was an overgrown tangle of roses, clematis and the insidious arum lily – not to mention buddleias as big as trees.

During the laborious clean-up, they uncovered the old dunny buried under a thicket – the outhouse fallen to pieces around it, but the toilet itself standing proud in the middle of the backyard.

Years of hard work have made huge changes. The garden is still full of lots of remnant bulbs and self-sown treasures that pop up unannounced, but now it feels well-loved. Pushing open the picket gate, you walk up to the house on a crunchy gravel path, surrounded by masses of plants.

IN FULL BLOOM

No cottage garden is complete without roses, and Julie has plenty of these, climbing roses run along the verandah, carefree roses and clematis scramble up trees and into hedges, covering the house and fences and their perfume fills the air in spring. Narrow paths snake between topiary balls and pencil pines to an area of raked granitic sand. Nearby is a bountiful vegetable garden, an old brick dairy (now used as a toolshed) and a chook house and a small, perfectly kept lawn for the family’s dogs, Miuccia and Maud, to play on.

A pergola at the back of the house drips with wisteria, roses and Chinese star jasmine.

Despite its recent resurrection, it feels like an old garden. The old dunny and overgrown jungle of a backyard may be long gone, but the original hawthorn hedge, after which the cottage is named, is still there. With great sensitivity, Julie has pruned, edited and revived different parts of the garden, transforming it from an overgrown muddle to a romantic country cottage garden, a perfect harmony of colour and texture.

In a classic cottage garden there’s always something blooming and the buzz of happy bees in the air, no matter what time of year. The secret is the more the merrier. Plants are crammed into garden beds so there is no space for weeds. Mix perennials, bulbs, trees and shrubs with flowering plants.

Blossoms from the many trees in the garden also adds to the charm, they include crab apples and quinces, apples and plum trees. AWW

To make a garden functional as well eye-catching, plant lemon or orange trees, and grow fragrant herbs such as thyme, sage, parsley and mint, or veggies such as tomatoes or beans.