An autumn stroll

It's been a while since I've invited you for a stroll through our garden.

Summers in Central Victoria are just so punishing that I find it hard to be inspired by anything garden related. Come autumn though...

Anyhow, if you care to join me under the ancient pear in the courtyard we'll make a start. Sorry about the hose - just kick it out of the way a little, if you like. You'll see that the foliage of miniature daffodils is already up here. They show their jolly yellow faces so soon after the cool weather starts around here.

Ready? Okay we'll head off down the Wisteria Walk, shall we? Don't forget to pick any flowers that catch your eye while you're peregrinating. We'll make an arrangement of them when we finish.

The first path to the right takes you into the White Garden. This, like everything at this time of year, is looking a little wild and unkempt, but the standard Iceberg roses continue to put on a good show long after their backdrop of Climbing Lamarque has finished. It is so easy to see why this has become such a popular rose in Australian gardens.

This is my favourite bed in the White Garden. It is filled with lilium longiflorum around Christmas time. Beautiful. This late in the season the daisies predominate, but there are also white salvias, petunias and other bits and pieces still in bloom. Heideschnee is still flowering away valiantly as well. The shrub is lemon verbena. We use it for making delicious lemony tisanes. Mmm. In a few weeks the ornamental pear, Chanticleer will put on her magnificent autumn display and will be the undisputed star of this bed. She's still green now though, as you can see.

Back into the Wisteria Walk and through the other side you'll enter the English Garden. The Mme Isaac Pereire roses that give this bed its height are not yet very tall, and so the whole thing looks a bit flat. I shall try some larger shrubs in this bed next season to do the same thing. Hopefully the roses will grow more next year. They still flower beautifully though!

I'm going to grow roses up the fence - that's why the trellis is there. The tree is a native Kurrajong and beside it three little buddleias to attract the butterflies.

The salvia is glorious at this time of year and is offset by an unnamed pink rose if you look this way. There are lots of different salvias throughout our garden but this purple one performs the best.

If you wander the path in the English Garden you'll come back to the end of the Wisteria Walk. Avert your eyes from the ugly empty patch behind the hammock where until a few weeks ago the century old peppercorn stood. How our neighbours could have chopped this down is beyond me. We've yet to decide what we plant in this large sunny and now empty section of our Native Garden. Head instead along the path where you'll find our little garden gnome hard at work at her nature study.

You'll find grevillias, callistemon, kangaroo paws, hakea, banksia, hardenbergia and other native flowers under established gum and wattle trees in our water conserving Native Garden. The musk parrots adore it, as do our resident possums! There are a few paths to explore in this area of the garden, so have a bit of a wander around and we'll congregate over at the firepit, okay?

Okay. Onward!

Back up the other side of the While Garden you'll see this beautiful unnamed red rose before you enter the Children's Garden.

We've been doing some work on Jemimah's Cubby which you'll see in this section of the garden, but we'll leave our examination of that for another visit. Right now we'll head past the Kitchen Garden and on out the front.

It's looking green out here. Green and peaceful I think.

There's more to see if you head on around the front of the house but why don't we head on inside and put those flowers in a bit of water?

I could do with a drink myself. Care to join me for a coffee?