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LONG Non-med garden

Dear garden friends,
I thought it must be a little while since we wrote of our gardens and there
will be some new members out there.
I have 2 gardens - the town garden is nearly in the med-plants environment
and the country garden which grows everything.
So being the ornery soul that I am I will write of the country garden first.
I would love to hear of other members' gardens.

IN 1987, Kees Klok,  sixty years old and myself, Gay Klok, who had hit the
Big Fifty, made a decision that changed our life then and is changing our
life now, ten remarkable years later.
Since seeing that tiny advertisement in the local newspaper offering  "a
life time opportunity to purchase a 
magnificent older style colonial farmhouse"  we have built a six-acre
ornamental garden with Chinese, American, Japanese and European rare plants
intermingling with Australian flora.   The "magnificent farmhouse" was a
typical Tasmanian middle-class farmhouse with a bullnose verandah painted
shocking pink, an outside bathroom, a kitchen with a wood burning stove, and
a verandah room with fishing net hanging in lieu of panes of glass to keep
out the birds.
The advertisement continued  "This four bedroom large homestead offers you a
large apple orchard [sic]
and a lifetime supply of firewood, bushland, the most astounding water views
you could imagine!"
The large apple orchard consisted of 2,000 apple trees from which Kees, a
structural engineer, worked out that more than one million apples would
emerge every year.
So they do and the parrots, blue fairy wrens, blackbirds, jays, silver eyes,
rosellas, possums, ducks, peafowl, bandicoots, potoroos and wallabies all
love Gay and Kees very much for them when they flock into the orchards every
year for a free feed.
The "lifetime supply of wood" is forty acres of semi-rain forest where the
Manferns, Dicksonia Antartica
grow lushly amongst Stringy Bark Eucalyptus, hundreds of Acacias [wattle]
and Callistemons.
The "For Sale" notice ended by stating, "This property is excellent value
for money also offers classic outbuildings including three picket houses."
The "picket houses" were three apple pickers' one roomed huts where the
casual labourers had wiled away the long, quiet evenings  by drawing all
kinds of interesting graffiti on the unlined walls.


In the ten years up to 1997, the garden has matured with amazing rapidness.
Seedlings, that were one to two feet high babies when planted,  are now
teenagers twenty to thirty feet in height.   The Home Orchard Garden has
become one of the largest cottage gardens around.   The ornamental garden,
including the home made pond area, covers an area of approximately six
acres.   These acres may be divided into four main areas, the "Cottage
Garden", the " Big Pond Cinderella and the Three Ugly Sisters", the "Mini
Birch wood" and the "Home Orchard Garden".   Brown gravel paths, grass
walkways and sandstone stepping stones lead the visitor on from one lovely
area to another.   Himalayan Primulas, all grown from seed that comes from
Cluny House Garden in Scotland romp through many borders, relishing the
moist and acidic conditions.   They intertwine through many perennials such
as the lovely blue or yellow Himalayan Poppy Meconopsis, Trilliums and
Helleborus [called Christmas Roses in Australia though the brave flowers
thrill us in June, the middle of our Winter!]  and Digitalis, apricot and
white foxgloves, seed themselves in just the right places.   Making
delightful hazes of blue, pink or white are those endearing thugs of the
natural gardens, the forget-me-nots and specie geraniums and acquilegias,
named granny-night-caps in Australia.
Most of the Primulas are the candelabra sort with whirls of flowers
ascending the stem in shades of orange, red, pink and yellow.   Some grow
to one foot high with seven or more circles of colour.
Above the perennials are flowering trees and shrubs.   The collection of
Acers growing in various parts of the garden  is large and varied.   One of
my favourites is Acer Senkaki, the fine coral bark Japanese maple.  The
vivid scarlet branches are such a welcome slash of colour in Winter and the
glow of orange leaves is wonderful in Autumn. They make splendid accents
within the garden scene.   I grow them, oddly enough, within my general beds.
Magnolias and their sisters Michelias revel in the conditions at
"Kibbenjelok".    The magnificent Michelia Denudata's large brown, furry
buds cheer me up so much from the middle of winter and when Spring comes,
the large white, softly perfumed blooms herald in the new Spring.   Across
the grass path, the showy Camellias challenge the Michelia with their huge
blooms of red, white or pink.   The Magnolia stellata, so useful for smaller
gardens stand up to the changeable weather of early Spring, after all, their
skirts are already cut by crimping shears.   In 1996, seven years after it
was planted as a very small tree, Magnolia campbellii "Charles Raffil"
bloomed with twenty-seven beautiful, dinner plate sized pale pink blooms.
They are notoriously very slow to flower, normally taking fifteen to twenty
years to gladden your heart and amaze your eyes.
A large collection of rare conifers is used to give interest when all else
is gathering breath [including the gardeners] for a very brief period in
Winter.   We have a large collection of rare specie Rhododendrons, including
the tender plants sp. Nuttalli [Dalhousiae] with chartreuse yellowish-green
with a pink blush perfumed flowers, subsp. Lindelii, waxy white tulip shaped
bells, "Fragrantissimum", perfuming the whole garden and the huge leaved
Asiatic tree Rhododendrons   to mention only a few amongst the hundreds
growing in the garden at "Kibbenjelok".
Formality was introduced when we created two heart shaped Rose beds [one for
Kees! and one for me!] 
which are formed by using Buxus {Box}  shaped into little balls surrounding
Rosa specie and old fashioned English Heritage roses.
The building of our paradise has given us great happiness and satisfaction.
We have been bone weary at times, worried on other occasions and angry when
the weather turns nasty on our "Open Days" but we have never regretted that
momentous decision we took on that sunny Winter's day.   This is the story
of the creation of a large folly from a little dream or, is it the other way
around, the creation of a little folly from a large dream?

Regards, loquacious Gay


Gay Klok, 2 Red Chapel Ave, Hobart, Tasmania - "Kibbenjelok", Middleton,
Tasmania
http://members.tripod.com/~klok/WRINKLY_.HTM 
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