This article was first published in The Diggers Club Magazine

I truly, deeply love my garden. I love it as much as I love people and that’s because gardens are powerful healers and essential to our wellbeing. In their absence urban & rural towns become increasingly warmer (Urban Heat Island Effect) and life less vibrant. Gardens improve the places where we live by reducing dust, noise, wind, glare, water run-off and erosion. They provide habitat for birds, frogs, insects and create beautiful shade for all.

It is for this reason that I find it impossible not to see the potential for a garden everywhere I go. A trip to Melbourne has my brain exploding with possibility. So many empty and degraded blocks of land. I dream big, imagining that one day I will start a not-for-profit, buy these empty blocks and turn them into beautiful public gardens.

But for now, I put all my energy into our own garden here in Blampied, on Dja Dja Wurrung country.  We have named the garden ORTO (Italian for garden), and it is home for both my family and my cooking school, Village Dreaming.

Nine years ago we began our garden and what an incredible feeling to have 15 acres to play with – red volcanic soil and a clean slate without a single tree. Yay – that meant we could revegetate to our hearts’ content!

The very first project was to build a wetland, not a dam but a body of water dedicated to wildlife and increasing biodiversity. It would also become my absolute favourite place to swim. The wetland has a shallow gradient creating a large verge where aquatic plants have been established. Reeds, rushes, sedges, and aquatic herbs proliferate, creating a picture of beauty reminiscent of an impressionist painting. Circumnavigating the wetland is a range of eucalypts, banksias and wattles to further increase habitat and to help cool the farm’s microclimate.

On the edge of our paddocks there are more eucalypts, wattles, banksias and callistemons. Then to the west, a species diverse olive orchard thrives for future olive oil harvesting. Underneath these gorgeous silver-leafed trees, Australian wildflowers flourish – Chrysocephalum apiculatum, Eryngium ovinum, Calocephalus lacteus to name a few. It’s slow work as each small plant needs to be protected from ravenous rabbits.

Across the paddocks chestnuts, oaks, walnuts and hazelnuts are dispersed in a woodland-like setting. One day they will become giant trees providing shade for us and animals, their roots adding carbon to soil and their canopies homes for birds and other nesting creatures.

Closer to our straw home is a prairie inspired garden with salvias, poas, achilleas, agastache, Panicum virgatum, eryngiums, echinops and teucrium hedges creating a huge burst of colour and movement. The poas are cut back annually to reveal lush green new growth. Bunches of panicum are collected and bundled as welcome bouquets for our farm stay guests.  

And to the north, a large kitchen garden is always planted with a mixture of vegetables and flowers. This year a huge harvest of pumpkins is stored in the larder for a year’s worth of meals, along with garlic braided and hung to enrich every dish.

Right up close to the kitchen are our favourite ingredients – herbs. Rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, lavender, mints, spearmints, bay laurel all intertwine beneath a tamarillo tree, laden with pendulous branches of bright red fruit. Further north our berry orchard thrives with boysenberries, currants, jostaberries, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, all framed by rhubarb and feijoas.

Near my neighbour’s old swamp gum we have introduced Eucalyptus pulverulenta, its juvenile leaves perfect for making summer wreaths. And as an understory, to complement the bright silver blue pulverulenta leaves, the wild flower Eryngium ovinum is being established. To the west we have a fruit orchard with nashi pears, cherries, apples, plums, apricots and bosc pears. A boundary planting of Luma apiculata has recently been added so its dense foliage will buffer wind and protect the orchard’s spring blossoms.  

Along the driveway a row of evergreen Holm oaks offer the promise of summer walks beneath their shade enroute to the wetland for a dip among the reeds. And let’s not forget the two oaks growing close to the prairie garden. Harvested from a 150-year-old oak tree with a gorgeous perfectly round canopy, I sowed the acorns on each side of our house, mulched heavily and kept the soil moist until finally I saw their germinating shoots. Hooray – a Totoro moment! (Hayao Miyazaki’s film about the power of trees to bring joy and adventure to our lives). These magnificent young trees are growing faster than the rest – being close to our home they get watered more regularly.

Gardens – I really love you! One day, with the help of a magic wand, I will see to it that no block of land is developed edge to edge without room for a garden. Instead, the privilege of a garden will become everyone’s right, and every person in every home will be able to start or end their day immersed in a beautiful, lush green, flower textured, shade-rich garden.