Cloudehill is a modern garden slotted into what had been a farm/nursery/flower farm in the Dandenongs dating from the 1890s. A bushfire swept through the property in 1962 but some plantings survived from earlier times,1928 being a big planting year and then 1962 post the fire. The mature trees on the property date from these times.

Part of the modern garden (built from 1992) incorporates a section of cool borders  followed by warm borders  on either side of a central path.

The Achillea in the cool border caught my eye but it was not until I returned home and consulted “Cloudehill, a year in the garden” by Jeremy Francis that I realised it is probably Achillea “Moonshine”. I brought back Achillea “Coronation Gold” from the Diggers nursery now on site  – a brighter yellow from the warm border but still with silvery foliage.

The path through the grass looks like it might end at a topiary buxus or holly but I didn’t actually check. On the map this lawn is called the Commedia dell’arte lawn and maybe my Achillea has sneaked into the corner of the photo.

The local Mountain Ash eucalypts tower over the deciduous trees down the right of the photo.

The book by the current owner Jeremy Francis is very good and full of lots of great photographs including the colony of Arisaema candidissimum which I saw but failed to photograph. “Cloudehill, a year in the garden” by Jeremy Francis, Images Publishing, Victoria, 2010.

 

 

Just down the road from Cruden Farm is the Royal Botanic Garden dedicated to Australian native plants and preserving an indigenous Victorian bushland.  The walkway up to the gardens is through the local bush and then the entry to the gardens themselves is a view of the spectacular red sand garden with lovely dry habitat planting flowering around its edge. I tried to photograph a New Holland honeyeater busy in the kangaroo paws.

The Eucalypt walk is a highlight with lots of interesting under plantings and bluestone hard landscaping.

There is a large amount of hard landscaping using stone and water throughout the garden in the midst of which is the weird and wonderful garden and its bottle trees. The gardens do hope to encourage visitors to consider natives in their gardens and seem to be experimenting with various plants to assess suitability and pleasing groupings. The plant I will definitely be considering for our gazebo garden is Leptospermum morrisonii “White Opal”.  We do have burgundy plantings in the Gazebo gardens and I hope it will be an improvement on Berberis as it has no prickles and with increased hardiness as compared to Loropetalum.

A quick garden trip to Victoria involving lots of driving and we made the 10am tour conducted by John Christie, horticulturalist and General Manager at Cruden Farm. The paddocks where looking summery with the famous lemon scented gums up the driveway  fitting right in as the approach to the lovely borders and trees around the house.

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch gardened here from 1927 until her death in 2012. Lady Mabel Fairfax began gardening at Sospel (now Waldorf Leura Gardens Resort) in 1927 and the age of both gardens is apparent in their tranquil feel. Cruden Farm has lovely lawns and a huge 80 year old tree on the National Trust register. It is a hybrid oak and dominates the inner garden a little like the Linden Tree does here. There is a lovely specimen of a weeping elm beside the oak.

Our weeping elm was not planted until 1966 by Margaret Stevens but it has attained a similar size. A copper beech is another stunning old tree. The Lady Fairfax garden contains a beech specimen of a similar size but it is not from the purpurea group.

The two borders that caught my eye where the burgundy border echoing the colours of the copper beech and the white border. The white border contained tall white phlox. The tall phlox were a part of the Fairfax borders too although they are the pink ones in the photos we have.

Cruden farm has a lake which Dame Elisabeth helped to sculpt, a walled garden designed by Edna Walling and a picking garden with lots of roses looking fabulous.