Adelaide Hills Gardens in Autumn: In the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia

Since the nineteenth century, the Adelaide Hills in autumn have been a sight to behold. The great gardens and the oaks of Stirling were planted more than a century ago. They loved their botany and worked to recreate a European landscape with deciduous trees everywhere. It was a good setting, much cooler and much wetter with up to twice the rainfall of the Adelaide plains.

Thanks to the long-admired Open Gardens Scheme, private gardens like “The Laurels” open their paths for us all to marvel. Well-known architect Pauline Hurren’s haven at Crafers has joined it for the first time this year. A creek from near Mt. Lofty summit gurgles through a softly drawn informal picture in one area. Its centrepiece pond is the work of a craftsman she much admires.

“It was created by John Perrett,” noted Pauline, pointing to rounded stepping stones and sunken boulders.” He loves every stone, and believes each one has a special place in the garden.”

The Hurren family live in the alluring seclusion here in an expanded humble cottage that was once the home of one of the ridgetop grand mansion gardeners, George Halliday. The garden has grown down the valley, too, but it has not lost its intimacy.

“No, it rambles on. I think the different levels give a different atmosphere. Each one has its own distinctive feel,” Pauline mused.

There are glimpses of what is now their hidden-in-the-greenery B&B, Corktree Cottage. Majestic and mysterious old cork trees give it the name. More than two acres later, who is in the army of gardeners?

“Sons-in-law and my two daughters,” Pauline grinned. “The chooks help and my husband Frank does a lot as well. Proving the point, he appeared with clippers at the ready to curb some exuberant ground cover down the watercourse. Theirs is an ever-evolving horticultural work of art.

Just a few kilometres away is a famous landscape by one of the old master gardeners. Between Stirling and Aldgate, above the pineforest, through the great gates, up the twisting drive and round one last bend is “Wairoa” The elaborate two-storey Victorian mansion was built in 1893, and beneath it, rolling down the slope, is its 110 year old garden. It is the last remaining intact Victorian pleasure garden in the Adelaide Hills.

Down through curving arched paths, the owner’s niece, Rasha, led the way. Her dog Charlie was first into a small circular lawn with a stunning specimen in the centre.

“This is a weeping elm,” Rasha said, understating the situation somewhat. It was huge, with its leaves yellowing beautifully and its massive trunk signaling its founding status. Behind it was one of the biggest cabbage tree palms you will see anywhere. The other great pines, elms and lower canopies now mask the original design of gardener, George Sparrow, revealed in a watercolour of the 1890’s.

The great house above, “Wairoa,” was built for William Austin Horn, who spent some of his fortune from the Broken Hill mine here. It also allowed him to support the Art Gallery and Museum and his legacy is on display further along North Terrace. He donated Adelaide’s first public statue, Canova’s Venus, as well as a copy of an ancient Greek statue of Hercules that once stood in Victoria Square before being moved to Creswell Gardens near Adelaide Oval.

At the bottom of the garden, spacious formal lawns allow a first sense of the expanse of the estate. “They played croquet down here and another level down there was the tennis court,” Rasha explained. The original stringybark forest is banished to the ridgetop here, but one aspect of the original landscape is celebrated.

“That’s one of the unique things about this garden. These granite outcrops were here and the grotto in there was carved out of the natural rock. The sculptured heads on the way up the hill were done by the original owner himself.” Rasha added that these slopes were the playground for children of one family for seven decades. A few years after its completion, this became another of the Barr Smith mansions. Marbury School blossomed in the grounds from the 1970’s, and two of its founders now own “Wairoa”, while the school remains further along the drive. It means Kirsty Dodd now has the privilege of weeding her own five acres.

No doubt, she allows herself an occasional breather in the original specially designed iron-framed and shingles-topped gazebo, with its glorious view down the steep slope past a giant silver elm that was dropping snow-like autumn leaves brightly lit against the dark pineforest screen beyond.

In order to keep the estate in the manner to which it has been accustomed, the Dodds make the house available for wedding functions (the photos in Autumn must be memorable), and they hope to open the garden to the public several times each year. For that, we will all be the richer. With perfect timing, it’s open for Mother’s Day 2003 in the Open Garden Scheme, and you are most welcome to bring your Mum up for a perfect Autumn day in the hills.

As an extra treat, throw in some hot chestnuts on the way. From April to June, Quentin Jones has the fire going at his Nirvana Organic Farm at Heathfield. Running down a native scrub protected valley are 150 chestnut trees in pretty Autumn colour, and in the all-year-round little shop are jams and condiments from the 56 fruit trees on the property, including several you’re unlikely to have ever seen or tasted. “Nirvana” means “perfection”, and this little Garden of Eden lives up to its name. It’s another special treat in autumn in the Adelaide Hills.

Details:

Wairoa
160 Mt. Barker Rd
Aldgate
Ph: 8339 6397
Open Garden
11 May 2003 Mother’s Day
10:00AM - 4:30 PM

Adults $4.50
Children Free
Devonshire Teas, expresso coffee, light lunches

Nirvana Organic Farm
184 Longwood Rd
Heathfield
Ph: 8339 2519

Fresh and roasted chestnuts
Weekends April-June
Farm tours, farm gate sales
Open 7 days

The Laurels, Crafers

Australia’s Open Garden Scheme
2003-2004 Program
(New book available at newsagents from August 2003)