New Beginnings

In January 2012, we bought this 1860's cottage in the Adelaide hills.  It is on 5 acres, split between bushland at the back, a paddock (about an acre), an old orchard and the garden areas immediately surrounding the house.

The house and garden were in need of some love, both being a bit overgrown and shabby.  We could see the potential though, and without hesitation, decided to move back to SA.  The house settled in June 2012 and we set to work immediately!

We could tell, walking around the garden, that at some point there had been some planning and forethought put into the garden, with plants like the 4 large oaks, birds of paradise, echiums, euphhorbias, and hundreds of beautiful bulbs and roses everywhere (just to name a few!).

 

One of the most beautiful parts of the property is the paddock to the right of the house, which has views towards Mt Lofty.  While you can't see the sunset from this point (it is further to the left), it does glow at the time of sunset and if there are clouds, is a beautiful place at that time of night.

The property also has this small stone cottage, situated about 50 metres from the main house.  From what we know, this is the house the original owners of the main house lived in while building the bigger cottage.  It is called 'Emmies Cottage' after the 6th daughter of the house's orignal owner, Ray Brodie.

As you can see, there was plenty of native trees and bushes around the house, which we knew we would need to deal with before the weather got hotter and bushfire season was upon us. 

In fact, the house was almost completely lost in all the growth and couldn't really be seen from the front fence!

So, one of our early jobs was to do some clearing, in order to feel a bit safer for summer.  This was the view immediately outside the back door - most of the plants are hawthorn bushes, blackberries and small fruit trees which had been left to grow wild.  In fact, you could barely walk through this section of the garden as it was so prickly and overgrown!

To the right of the house, we discovered a very old orchard, with apples, pears, cherries and some walnut trees.  Part of our job in clearing and cleaning up the yard was to prune back the fruit trees, and try to see which ones would be productive again.

This is one of Brent's early sketches, with a design for what the garden might become.  It is not drawn to scale but gives a good idea of the vision we have of what this garden could be and where we hope to head with the property.  We are sure it will evolve and change as we grow to understand the garden better, and get to know things like the climate, water availability, size and scope of the garden.  But let's hope we can rescue it a bit, and give this beautiful old house a garden that helps to celebrate it's history.