A two-acre garden that's risen from the ashes of the 2019 Cuddle Creek bushfire.

Highcroft is a two-acre garden created around 2010 from what was formerly a donkey paddock!

The garden was well established when in 2019, the Cudlee Creek bushfire destroyed about a third of the area but fortunately left the house and outbuildings untouched. Maureen was not deterred and with help from husband Chris was soon back at work recreating her much loved garden.

An avenue of claret ash trees underplanted with agapanthus leads to the house. The ground is very stony and massive rocks too big to be moved were left in situ to become focal points or seats.  Wide paths lined with yet more rocks meander through beds planted with a huge selection of roses, oleanders, cannas, diosma, ornamental grasses, salvias, lavender and butterfly-attracting buddleias.

Garden beds have been coordinated in pleasing-to-the-eye flower or foliage colour combinations with some plants clipped into hedges or domes. There is also a conifer bed and a rockery planted with a variety of succulents.

Chris has created several elaborate iron sculptures and gates, as well as arbors that are planted with climbing roses and a typical old Australian outdoor ‘dunny’ has been converted into a tiny but charming potting shed and looks at home in this beautiful rural setting.

Irrigation water is limited and the garden is in a rain shadow so all plants are drought tolerant and from Mediterranean areas of the world with similar climatic conditions to South Australia.