Hidden Gardens of South Australia

 A great day out!

Hidden Gardens is a great event for garden lovers in South Australia. Your ticket guarantees you to entry to 4 private gardens and you don't find out where the gardens are until closer to the day. They are all private homes and so not generally accessible to visitors.

The gardens were all in an around the town of Stirling in the Adelaide Hills. Stirling was popular with the early British settlers as it was cooler there during the summer months in contrast to the rather scorching summers down on the Adelaide plain. Wealthy owners were able to establish European style gardens thanks to the cold winters and milder summers.

The first garden that I visited was Beechwood, the original owner was Francis Snow who came to live in Stirling in 1893. The site he purchased had been an apple orchard and he set about clearing the land and establishing the gardens. As he was a merchant he was able to buy a great variety of plants from Europe and even sent his head gardener to China and India to purchase rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas.

Beechwood

Beechwood Conservatory

As you walk down the driveway the first major building in front of you is a Victorian cast iron conservatory. A storm in 2016 caused a large pine tree to fall on the conservatory and it's still in the process of being repaired.

The garden has a variety of 'rooms' this one being a parterre garden walled in by large hedges.

The back of the house

The Japanese garden

The Red Bridge

The front of the house was set up for refreshments, lots of nice treats for morning tea!

The old well in the centre the lawned area was made into a fountain to commemorate the centenary of the garden in 1993. The grand-daughters of the garden's creators Francis and Flora Snow contributed to to fountain's construction.

St. Vigean's

The gardens at St. Vigean's were laid out as the house was being built from 1882 to 83, the house was designed to look down into the garden. It is on quite a steep slope! The property was established by Sir Edward Charles Stirling, the town of Stirling is named after his father. 

He imported a large variety of Rhododenrons (the colour of these ones I particularly liked) and several new varieties were created by Sir Edward and his head gardener.

The house looking down into the garden, there was a Plant Stall at this property for anyone looking for something for their garden.

Panmure

The Panmure garden goes down into a valley and was the oldest garden that I visited, it dated back to the 1870s. Being so steep it is terraced, stonemasons who lost their jobs from building the Mt Lofty rail-line were employed instead to create long stone terraces joined by stone steps.

A lot of the colour of the Panmure garden comes from the trees, there are winding paths that take you to different parts of the garden.

Stone steps leading down to a lower terrace.

A fountain at the lowest level in the valley.

Walking around the garden you would come across these unexpected little areas to retreat to. Two Adirondack chairs and a sculpture overlooking a creek.

I loved these moss covered stairs, they were roped off so obviously not in use anymore. They reminded me of the Ghibli film 'Laputa, Castle in the Sky' as Laputa was left to nature after it was abandoned and covered in vegetation.

Upton

This was the newest and smallest garden (less than an acre) that was open for the Hidden Garden day. It was also the only garden that had native Australian plants in the garden.

A large hedged area to give privacy as you wander down to the house.

This property had a produce stall in the garage area and I was able to buy some homemade plum jam as the lady selling it to me said she had made 250 jars. That's a lot of plums!

The money raised from Hidden Gardens day goes to the Garden Projects at Carrick Hill. I've visited those gardens in the past.

Carrick Hill gardens

Wandering around these lovely gardens was a great way to spend a day and it ended with a late lunch at the Stirling pub!