A beautiful and colourful example of a garden attractively incorporating Australian and Mediterranean plants

Orcombe Farm is a 1-acre country garden with superb views of the surrounding vineyards and Barossa Ranges. A bare site just six years ago, the garden has been designed and created from scratch by Aleisha Lynch, a third-generation Barossa horticulturist and previously the head gardener at the Paul Bangay-designed garden at Barossa Valley Estate.

Within the garden there are beautifully colour-coordinated perennial borders, areas for growing Australian natives, succulents and cut flowers, a greenhouse with an aquaponic vegetable garden and a productive patch with wicking beds and fruit trees.

Each area is distinctly different and each has been designed to endure hot, dry summers with plants selected for drought-tolerance and durability as well as their form, flower and foliage colour. Harvested rainwater is the property’s only water supply, so the sustainable plantings thrive on modest supplementary watering through the summer months. The extensive range of vibrantly coloured perennials includes many salvias, echium, agastache and echinops, with grasses adding softness and contrasting shape.

Seven acres of grassy woodland surround the property and beneath the mature blue gums are many pretty ground-dwelling native wild flowers including chocolate lilies, bulbines, flax and garland lilies as well as native grasses.

Landscaping materials used in the ironstone rock walls, in the crushed gravel paths and throughout the garden have mostly been sourced on the property.