Southern Highlands gardens show off in prime autumn foliage viewing time
The downside of downsizing for gardeners is less garden. Susan Hands thought she'd be happy with balcony and indoor landscaping when she swapped a quarter-acre in Killara for an apartment closer to the city. But the space constraints did not make her happy and she swapped again, this time to an old cottage and garden in Bowral. She jokes that the downsizing experiment concluded as an upsize – to an acre of not so much garden as steeply sloping weeds and a thicket of spooky, overgrown Cupressus macrocarpa.
A few years later, stone paths and walls have been rediscovered and reformed or built anew, the cypress thinned and trimmed to form a sculptural framing for the westerly views from the house, and the garden has settled into itself. It's one of a handful of private gardens open on the weekend of April 27 and 28 as a fundraiser for the Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens.
Late April is prime autumn foliage viewing time and Hands' woodland will be showing off. A woodland was top spot on her must-have list for the garden makeover. The existing maples were joined by more, as well as by a golden em, and a clutch of silver birch. The monochromatic trunks of the birch form the vertical accents of a shaded garden that changes with the seasons; the daffodils, species tulips and bluebells of spring giving way to crocus and cyclamen in autumn.
Also looking good in the autumn are Hands' extensive collection of hydrangeas. The foliage of the oak-leaf hydrangeas is a deep russet-brown, the evergreen hydrangea, Dichroa versicolor, is still a brilliant blue and the flowers of the mopheads fade from bright blues and deep pinks to tones of sepia, spotty faded pinks, and verdigris-green.
Highlights of Hands' hydrangea collection include the rare and the extremely sought-after "Greenmantle" and her personal favourite, "Ayesha", with waxy little cupped flowers. Of the modern varieties putting on an autumn show, "Forever" from the Japanese-bred You and Me series is pretty, with pale blue double flowers in a lace cap style, though for me "Sundae Fraise" is the stunner, with big cone-shaped flowers that start green, then age through white to a range of pinks.
Others make a link with the long traditions of Southern Highlands gardening through the great local plantswoman Joan Arnold. Arnold's garden, Buskers End, was a treasury of rare plants, and before she died, in 2013, she invited Moidart Nurseries to take cuttings from her hydrangeas, many of which Hands now grows.
The garden upsize was an unexpected change but Hands has relished the opportunity to rescue a neglected Southern Highlands garden, and make it shine.
Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens hosts a plant fair as well as the open gardens on April 27 and 28.