Natural beauty

natural beauty From the French Provincial to iron works of art, the Festival of Gardens offers the perfect blend of Castlemaine’s best.

By Geoff Hocking

The Festival of Gardens has a long history It began more than 25 years ago as an event to plug the gap in the off-year of the biennial Castlemaine State Festival. Since then, the Castlemaine and District Festival of Gardens has offered visitors and garden lovers the opportunity to enjoy more than 200 gardens across Mount Alexander Shire. When the first festival was held in 1991, there were 50 open gardens. To get around all of them would have been a nearimpossible task for even the most dedicated visitor. As the years have gone by, festival organisers have settled on an average of 24 gardens each year. Even that is a big task for garden enthusiasts who want to fit in all on offer. It would usually mean visiting five or six gardens a day, over the two weekends of Melbourne Cup Week, or squeezing in a couple during the week as well. This year, 10 gardens are on display – COVID-19 has forced the festival to reduce the number, as some gardeners just did not feel able to open. But the organising committee believes they are still offering a full garden experience with those properties that have signed up, giving visitors the best of Castlemaine’s town gardens, including; the beautiful Waverley villa and its gorgeous back garden, which has influences of Provincial France; the lovely small cottage garden just up the road at 121 Hargraves Street; and Inclinations, another cottage garden in Bowden Street, which was a favourite during the last festival in 2018. Mossbank, on the Bendigo side of town, has been a garden exhibitor almost since the beginning, and visitors have been able to watch the garden mature and the buildings grow over time from the first charming mud-brick home in its rural setting, which now also houses a two-storey B&B and studio.

One garden that showed for the first time in 2018 and is again on display is another offering B&B accommodation. Haven on Barkers is a rambling garden combining native and European plantings. Situated along the Midland Highway at Barkers Creek, the garden lines the creek that in times of consistent rain can threaten its very existence, but the old eucalypts stand firm while the house garden is safe, set on a rise well above any invasive waters. Also at Barkers Creek are two festival favourites. Next-door neighbours Hedgehogs and Lixouri are a must for visitors, many of whom come time and time again, festival after festival, to enjoy them once more and to see what changes have been made, what has bloomed and what has not. They will open both weekends of this festival, but will be closed to visitors during the week. A little further out of town are three quite different gardens, each an easy 10-15-minute drive from Castlemaine: Antares Iron Art Garden and East Meets West at Laceys in Newstead, and Forest Edge at Muckleford. Antares Iron Art Garden is a completely different kind of garden. Not so much a display of plants, but of art and sculptures constructed from thousands of items of repurposed metal – old tools, axe heads, rusting machinery, wire and tin. Here, Roger McKindley lives in an off-grid old farm cottage surrounded by the most imaginative collection of old iron arranged in the most surprising ways. This garden was featured on Gardening Australia and will delight as much as it surprises. East Meets West, in the small township of Newstead, is an eclectic array of exotic plants, bonsai displays, sculptures and garden enclosures with an Eastern influence. At Muckleford, a little off the well-worn track but well worth the diversion, is the charming rural garden named Forest Edge. Sprawling over a large farmhouse property, it features garden

rooms that stand alongside old farm buildings. This is a working farm where the owners have spent countless hours creating an oasis of flowering plants, ornamental shrubs and flowering trees. Festival of Gardens 2021 may be showing a smaller number of gardens this year, but visitors can be assured it offers excellent gardens – ranging from miner’s cottages to grand homes, rural and farmhouse gardens. The big challenge for garden lovers will be to see them all in just two weekends over Melbourne Cup Week. Another outstanding feature of Castlemaine’s historic Goldfields community is the Castlemaine Botanic Gardens and Lake Joanna. This beautifully maintained public garden sits between Barkers Creek, the railway and the historic Thompson’s Foundry. It was first set aside for a public reserve in 1860. Philip Doran was appointed the first curator of the gardens in 1866. Doran had served as an apprentice to the great British landscape designer Sir Joseph Paxton and, during his time in Castlemaine, fostered a close relationship with Baron von Mueller, director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Hungarian emigré and renowned silversmith Ernest Leviny, who developed a Victorian home once known as Delhi Villa into the mansion now known as Buda, was an acquaintance of von Mueller, and the Baron’s influence can be seen in Buda’s extensive gardens. There are many significant trees in the Castlemaine garden, with several on the National Register, including the magnificent oak planted in 1863 to celebrate the marriage of HRH The Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Believed to be the oldest planted tree in the gardens, the ‘Royal Oak’ was voted Victoria’s Tree of the Year in 2021. The Botanic Gardens are opposite the popular Mill Vintage Bazaar, Shedshaker Bar & Brewery and Das Kaffeehaus – definitely a destination for the visitor to take a welcome break while deciding which garden to visit next. The 2021 Castlemaine and District Festival of Gardens will be held from Saturday, October 30, to Sunday, November 7.