Hamlyn Cottage
Taking a break from posting about Singapore and do one closer to home. It's late spring at the moment in Australia and that's the time for the garden enthusiasts to visit private gardens that have been opened to the public. So a few weekends ago, off I went to a garden that was open in the Adelaide Hills. Hamlyn Cottage is a privately owned property just outside of Mt. Barker, the owner is a horticulturist who writes articles for various print media. She's established a garden that has low water usage (important in South Australian conditions due to hot dry summers) and is as organic as possible.
It was a pleasant drive up the freeway through the hills, the countryside was still very green, the summer dryness had yet to begin. Once in the town of Mt. Barker it was easy to follow the signs back out into the countryside again to the open garden. It was very busy with a full carpark of other garden enthusiasts!
The house is an old stone cottage which has been restored, there was a photo posted of the derelict cottage before restoration. I'm always happy to see people with the desire, (finances!) and ability to restore the historic past of an area.
The restored stone cottage. (So many people that it was difficult to take a photo without them in the background! I'd wait for some people to move and new ones would come into the picture. Sigh, I gave up after 5 minutes and conceded that there would have to be random members of the public in my photo!)
The photo of what condition the cottage was in before restoration.
The rustic nature of the 'outdoor room' or entertainment area. I loved the use of random objects, the old pram, a baby's iron cot (crib for the North Americans!) to hold pot plants.
I loved these pods (so did many of the other people wandering around, I had to wait quite a while and take a quick photo, to get one with no people in it!) According to the information pamphlet, her husband made the metal frame and pod frames and basket weavers wove the pods for her.
The owners of the property are a husband and wife, Sophie is the horticulturist and her husband Richard has quite an artistic talent with metal. All around the garden are a variety of metal sculptures he's created and I was charmed by all of them. These are metal cutouts of children playing.
This was the first one I saw and thought it was brilliant, I spent time seeing how many metal objects I could identify! A rake head, wool shears, garden forks, just amazing.
A climbing frame for plants (or arbour if you like), it's just possible to see vines starting to climb on the lower parts of the legs. Loved this as well! The old train carriage in the background is used as a gardener's shed.
Another favourite (so many!) a horseshoe gate!
Balanced on this enormous tree stump, an onion sculpture ( at least to me it looked like an onion!)
A creative water feature!!
There was an orchard which was a fenced off area, chickens and geese roamed around helping to keep the bug population down. Here they come marching down, with a gosling!
There were 2 geese who were nesting, this one had a new hatchling in her nest along with the eggs she was still sitting on.
Not all the sculptures were metal, here's a stone (concrete?) dragon.
An iconic image of the Australian rural landscape, the windmill. It's used to pump underground water to the surface.
A nice way to spend a few hours on a weekend and inspiring to see what other people can do. In this case in just 4 years!
Taking a break from posting about Singapore and do one closer to home. It's late spring at the moment in Australia and that's the time for the garden enthusiasts to visit private gardens that have been opened to the public. So a few weekends ago, off I went to a garden that was open in the Adelaide Hills. Hamlyn Cottage is a privately owned property just outside of Mt. Barker, the owner is a horticulturist who writes articles for various print media. She's established a garden that has low water usage (important in South Australian conditions due to hot dry summers) and is as organic as possible.
It was a pleasant drive up the freeway through the hills, the countryside was still very green, the summer dryness had yet to begin. Once in the town of Mt. Barker it was easy to follow the signs back out into the countryside again to the open garden. It was very busy with a full carpark of other garden enthusiasts!
The house is an old stone cottage which has been restored, there was a photo posted of the derelict cottage before restoration. I'm always happy to see people with the desire, (finances!) and ability to restore the historic past of an area.
The owners of the property are a husband and wife, Sophie is the horticulturist and her husband Richard has quite an artistic talent with metal. All around the garden are a variety of metal sculptures he's created and I was charmed by all of them. These are metal cutouts of children playing.
This was the first one I saw and thought it was brilliant, I spent time seeing how many metal objects I could identify! A rake head, wool shears, garden forks, just amazing.
A climbing frame for plants (or arbour if you like), it's just possible to see vines starting to climb on the lower parts of the legs. Loved this as well! The old train carriage in the background is used as a gardener's shed.
There was an orchard which was a fenced off area, chickens and geese roamed around helping to keep the bug population down. Here they come marching down, with a gosling!
An iconic image of the Australian rural landscape, the windmill. It's used to pump underground water to the surface.
A nice way to spend a few hours on a weekend and inspiring to see what other people can do. In this case in just 4 years!
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