A pretty, all seasons’ cottage garden with masses of beautiful blooms

Bron, a textile artist, musician and avid gardener, and husband Laurie, purchased the sloping Rosenthal Gully block in 1977.

In the four decades since they have built terraces, steps and retaining walls and developed a pretty, all seasons’ cottage garden.

The trees and shrubs planted in the early days now form a year-round framework, some also producing masses of beautiful blooms. In early spring the front garden features a 35-year-old Magnolia soulangeana, camellias and azaleas which shelter a vibrant mass of iris, aquilegias, bluebells, anemones, forget-me-nots with blue and pink ajuga creating a carpet of colour.

Behind the house, the garden wraps around the sides of a tennis court on a lower level. The beds are crammed full of flowering shrubs, perennials, groundcovers and bulbs to ensure a continuous floral display; roses, sweet peas, honeysuckle and wisteria flood the entertaining area overlooking the court with perfume.  The eye is drawn to a delightful tea house at the bottom of the garden which can be reached by meandering paths through dense plantings of shade loving hellebores, fuchsias, ferns, bacopa and alstroemeria.

There is evidence of Bron’s artistic talents everywhere: her bonsai collection, her colourful mosaics, and the rusty pieces crafted from old garden tools, pottery, and glassware she has recycled into quirky garden ornaments. In one of the lower garden beds, several milkweed plants provide food for the caterpillars of the Monarch butterfly, and the adjacent steps have been mosaicked to show the life cycle of butterflies.

A tiny fairy garden with fairy tree houses will interest children.