Garden Opening

The Toorak garden of Cranlana, designed by arts-and-crafts supremo Harold Desbrowe-Annear in 1929 and one of the few remaining gardens of its era in Victoria, is open for afternoon tea (from 2pm to 4pm), and drinks and canapes (from 5pm to 7pm), on Thursday November 29, $120 for each event. Cranlana, owned by the Myer family for almost 100 years, features mature specimen trees, a sunken garden, extensive lawns, hedges, water features and Italian marble statues. At each session, there will be talks by both the head gardener and a garden expert. Proceeds will go to a new therapeutic garden being developed at the Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre. Go to opengardensvictoria.org.au to make a booking.

Lecture

When Cassian Schmidt, the director of Hermannshof garden in Germany, spoke at the Australian Landscape Conference in Melbourne earlier this year, he outlined his work to develop "recipes, like for a cake" for adventurous mixes of plants that could be applied across a range of sites with particular conditions, such as dry shade or dry sun.
Garden designer Sandra McMahon will have a special focus on the Hermannshof gardens in her illustrated talk on German landscape design trends at Burnley next week. The talk starts at 7pm for 7.30pm, Wednesday November 28, Burnley campus, 500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, $15/$5 Friends of Burnley. Email friends.burnley@gmail.com or phone 9035 6815 to make a booking.