CLUANIE OPEN GARDEN
SUNDAY MAY 14TH 2017
10.00am – 4.00pm
430 Koonwarra Inverloch Road
A gracious 1890’s farm house overlooks this delightful country garden featuring maples for autumn colour, ginkgoes and a wide range of exotics. Visitors will discover an orchard with persimmon and pomegranate trees and a remarkable food garden with citrus and raised vegetable beds. There are quirky rustic garden curios, dry stone walls and arbours to wander through.
Entry price $10 (children U18 free).
Entry price fully deductible when purchasing Anne’s latest release Influential Australian Garden People: their stories. $39.00 (RRR $49.00)
BBQ and hot/cold drinks provided by Leongatha Lions Club (all proceeds from catering donated to the Flying Doctor Service)
CHILDRENS ACTIVITIES 11am to 2pm
Apple bobbing, games, etc
‘Cluanie Garden’ Notes
Cluanie is an historic property at Koonwarra in South Gippsland. The old homestead, sited at the top of a mound, has gradually disappearing behind a swath of greenery all planted in the last seven years. You enter the property via a winding driveway bordered by paddocks and contented cattle. Originally called Lyrebird Mound, the property was renamed Cluanie by the MacDonald family in 1904.
Anne has drawn on the lovely garden Mrs MacDonald created during the 1930s and ’40s. It is an old fashioned country garden of shrubs, trees and curved garden beds interspersed with lawns. The garden of just over half an acre is divided into various rooms which emphasise each aspect of the house.
At the western end of the homestead there are raised vegetable beds surrounded by a small grove of citrus trees. Facing north, French doors from the kitchen open to a back veranda shaded by ornamental grapes which form a wall of green to the large courtyard. Hedges of Metrosideros and Jasmine enclose a garden of Rugosa roses, Crab Apples, Flax, and Euphorbias. The southern aspect has a circular gravelled courtyard and in the shade of the house Anne has indulged in many favourite shade loving plants such as Tree Ferns, Ligularias, Fuchsias, Liriopes and Hydrangeas. The opposite side of the gravel circle gets full sun and has been mass planted with various Salvias, Lilly Pilly, Sparmarnia and Eucomis.
In 2016 the wide formal veranda on the eastern aspect had the original iron lace restored to its former glory after lying in a shed for over thirty years. The view from the veranda takes in a semicircular bed of Flax, Escallonia, Ceanothus, Crab Apple and Ginkgo. Beyond is the orchard which is already producing an abundance of fruit.
The setting in the rolling hills is lovely and thanks to abundant water and rich red soil the garden has grown at a rapid rate. The mixture of shrubberies, perennial plantings and trees is set against a wonderful backdrop of century old Oaks, Elms and Cypress.
