Melrose
33 Clowes Street, Malmsbury
Saturday 30 November, 2019 to
Sunday 1 December, 2019
10.00am - 4.30pm
Entry $8 Students $5 Under 18 free
Image credits:
Top illustration by Ian Murray
Top two photographs by Simon Griffiths
Website: www.potagerdesigns.com.au/
‘Melrose’ is a circa 1860s bluestone cottage surrounded by a garden sanctuary designed with a mix of elements: some formality and symmetry, some romance and wildness, a mingling of ornamental and productive plants, and the use of local recycled materials and artefacts from overseas.
A visitor coined the term ‘wild chic garden’. It is featured in Simon Griffths’ book Garden Love, as well as appearing on Gardening Australia and Better Homes and Gardens. The unique pool shed was featured in Simon Griffiths’ Shed publication.
This is a garden of many diverse parts that simultaneously melds as a whole. A Mediterranean-oriented courtyard surrounds the living and dining areas combining a central fish pond, grape-covered arbor, iron windows from Turkey and pots of citrus. The old lean-to kitchen cottage was relocated from the bluestone house to the far corner of the property to use as a gardener’s shed coupled with a vegetable garden – as if it were an independent living space with its own garden. Next to this a chicken house, where a Barnevelder chicken family now live, was created with fruit trees providing shade in the chicken run.
The pool is a central feature of the garden, integrated into the garden landscape to create the sense of a pond, where plantings go up to and over the side of the pool and incorporate grasses and productive trees to help create the feel of a natural water feature. The pool shed was inspired by the hay sheds of Central Victoria, using bush poles, recycled sleepers and corrugated iron, and internally a serene Middle Eastern theme.
Deborah’s garden featured on the ABC’s Gardening Australia program two years ago; see: https://www.abc.net.au/ gardening/factsheets/a- malmsbury-garden/9441134
Other places of interest you may wish to visit as part of your visit to the open garden include:
- Malmsbury Botanic Gardens, Ellesmere Place, Malmsbury
- Piper Street, Kyneton – restaurants, cafes and galleries
- Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens, Central Springs Road, Daylesford
Parking notes:
Preferred parking at Malmsbury botanic garden (one block away) or on side of road.
Garden Notes
Information and advice on garden visiting